LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

Class    ,  o/3  D 


THE   BROTHERS'  WAR 


THE  BROTHERS' 
WAR 


BY 

JOHN   C.  REED 

OF    GEORGIA 

AUTHOR  OF  "AMERICAN  LAW  STUDIES,"    "CONDUCT  OF  LAWSUITS 
"  THE  OLD  AND   NEW  SOUTH  " 


BOSTON 

LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND    COMPANY 
1906 


Copyright,  1905, 
BY  LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY. 


All  rights  reserved 


Published  October,    1905 


THE    UNIVERSITY  PRESS,    CAMBRIDGE,  U.  S.  A. 


PREFACE 


I  WOULD  explain  the  real  causes  and  greater  conse 
quences  of  the  bloody  brothers'  war.     I  pray  that 
all  of  us  be  delivered,  as  far  as  may  be,  from  bias 
and  prejudice.     The  return  of  old  affection  between  the 
sections  showed  gracious  beginning  in  the  centennial 
year.     In  the  war  with  Spain  southerners  rallied  to  the 
stars  and  stripes  as  enthusiastically  as  northerners.     Rec 
oncilement  has  accelerated  its  pace  every  hour  since. 
But  it  is  not  yet  complete.     The  south  has  these  things 
to  learn : 

1.  A  providence,  protecting   the   American   union, 
hallucinated    Garrison,   Wendell    Phillips,    Mrs.    Stowe, 
Sumner,  and  other  radical  abolitionists,  as  to  the  negro 
and  the  effect  of  southern  slavery  upon  him,  its  purpose 
being  to  destroy  slavery  because  it  was  the  sine  qua  non 
of  southern  nationalization,  the  only  serious  menace  ever 
made  to  that  union.     This  nationalization  was  stirring 
strongly   before   the  federal  constitution  was  adopted. 
The  abolitionists,  as  is  the  case  with  all  forerunners  of 
great  occurrences,  were    trained    and    educated  by  the 
powers  directing  evolution,  and  they  were  constrained 
to  do  not  their  own  will  but  that  of  these  mighty  powers. 

2.  The  cruel  cotton  tax;  the  constitution  amended 
to   prevent   repentance    of   uncompensated    emancipa 
tion,  which  is  the  greatest  confiscation  on  record ;  the 
resolute   effort  to   put  the  southern  whites  under  the 


228469 


vi  Preface 

negroes ;  and  other  such  measures ;  were  but  natural  out 
come  of  the  frenzied  intersectional  struggle  of  twenty-five 
years  and  the  resulting  terrible  war.  Had  there  been 
another  event,  who  can  be  sure  that  the  south  would  not 
have  committed  misdeeds  of  vengeance  against  citizens 
of  the  north? 

3.  We  of  the  south  ought  to  tolerate  the  freest  dis 
cussion  of  every  phase  of  the  race  question.  We  should 
ungrudgingly  recognize  that  the  difference  of  the  northern 
masses  from  us  in  opinion  is  natural  and  honest.  Let  us 
hear  their  expressions  with  civility,  and  then  without 
warmth  and  show  of  disrespect  give  the  reasons  for  our 
contrary  faith.  This  is  the  only  way  for  us  to  get  what  we 
need  so  much,  that  is,  audience  from  our  brothers  across 
the  line.  Consider  some  great  southerners  who  have 
handled  most  exciting  sectional  themes  without  giving 
offence.  There  is  no  invective  in  Calhoun's  speech,  of 
March  4,  1850,  though  he  clearly  discerned  that  abo 
lition  was  forcing  the  south  into  revolution.  Stephens, 
who  had  been  vice-president  of  the  Confederate  States, 
reviewed  in  detail  soon  after  the  brothers'  war  the  con 
flict  of  opinion  which  caused  it,  and  yet  in  his  two 
large  volumes  he  spoke  not  a  word  of  rancor.  When 
congress  was  doing  memorial  honor  to  Charles  Sumner, 
it  was  Lamar,  a  southerner  of  southerners,  that  made  the 
most  touching  panegyric  of  the  dead.  And  the  other 
day  was  Dixon's  masterly  effort  to  prove  that  the  real, 
even  if  unconscious,  purpose  of  the  training  at  Tuskegee 
is  ultimately  to  promote  fusion,  which  the  southern 
whites  deem  the  greatest  of  evils.  His  language  is  en 
tirely  free  from  passion  or  asperity.  He  wonders  in 
admiration  at  the  marvellous  rise  of  Booker  Washing 
ton  from  lowest  estate  to  unique  greatness.  And  he 


Preface 


vn 


gives  genuine  sympathy  to  Professor  DuBois,  in  whose 
book,  "  The  Souls  of  Black  Folk,"  as  he  says,  "  for  the 
first  time  we  see  the  naked  soul  of  a  negro  beating  itself 
to  death  against  the  bars  in  which  Aryan  society  has 
caged  him." 

These  examples  of  Calhoun,  Stephens,  Lamar,  and 
Dixon  should  be  the  emulation  of  every  southerner 
speaking  to  the  nation  upon  any  subject  that  divides 
north  and  south.  This  done,  we  will  get  the  audience 
we  seek.  It  was  this  which  not  long  ago  gave  Clark 
Howell's  strong  paper  opposing  negro  appointments  to 
office  in  the  south  prominent  place  in  Collier's,  and  which 
last  month  obtained  for  Dixon's  article  just  mentioned 
the  first  pages  of  the  Saturday  Evening  Post.  When  we 
get  full  audience,  other  such  discussions  as  those  of 
Howell  and  Dixon,  and  that  in  which  Tom  Watson,  in 
the  June  number  of  his  magazine,  showed  Dr.  Booker 
Washington  a  thing  or  two,  will  be  digested  by  the  north 
ern  public,  to  the  great  advantage  of  the  whole  country. 

The  last  I  have  to  say  here  is  as  to  differing  opinions 
upon  social  recognition  of  prominent  negroes.  We  of 
the  south  give  them  great  honor  and  respect.  Could  not 
Mr.  Roosevelt  have  said  to  us  of  Georgia  protesting 
against  his  entertainment  of  Booker  Washington,  "  Have 
I  done  worse  than  you  did  when  you  had  him  to  make 
that  address  at  the  opening  of  your  Exposition  in  1895, 
and  applauded  it  to  the  echo  ?  "  Suppose,  as  is  true, 
that  hardly  a  man  in  the  south  would  eat  at  the  same 
table  with  Dr.  Washington  or  Professor  DuBois,  how 
can  that  justify  us  in  heaping  opprobrium  upon  a 
northern  man  who  does  otherwise  because  he  has  been 
taught  to  believe  it  right  ?  What  has  been  said  in 
denunciation  of  the  president  and  Mr.  Wanamaker  for 


viii  Preface 

their  conduct  towards  Booker  Washington  seems  to  me 
rather  a  hullabaloo  of  antediluvian  moss-backs  than  the 
voice  of  the  best  and  wisest  southerners. 

Amid  all  her  gettings  let  the  south  get  complete 
calmness  upon  everything  connected  with  the  race 
question  —  complete  deliverance  from  morbid  sensitive 
ness  and  intemperate  speech  in  its  discussion. 
Now  here  is  what  the  north  should  learn : 
I.  Slavery  in  America  was  the  greatest  benefit  that 
any  large  part  of  the  negro  race  ever  received;  and 
sudden  and  unqualified  emancipation  was  woe  inexpres 
sible  to  nearly  all  the  freedmen.  The  counter  doctrine 
of  the  abolitionists  who  taught  that  the  negro  is  equal 
to  the  Caucasian  worked  beneficently  to  save  the  union, 
but  it  ought  now  to  be  rejected  by  all  who  would  under 
stand  him  well  enough  to  give  him  the  best  possible  de 
velopment.  The  fifteenth  amendment  was  a  stupendous 
blunder.  It  took  for  granted  that  the  southern  negroes 
were  as  ready  for  the  ballot  as  the  whites.  The  fact  is 
that  they  were  as  a  race  in  a  far  lower  stage  of  evolu 
tion.  Consider  the  collective  achievement  of  this  race, 
not  in  savage  West  Africa,  but  where  it  has  been  long 
in  contact  with  civilization,  in  Hayti,  and  the  south. 
Hayti  has  been  independent  for  more  than  a  hundred 
years.  "  Sir  Spencer  St.  John  .  .  .  formerly  British 
Minister  Resident  in  Hayti,  after  personally  knowing  the 
country  for  over  twenty  years,  claims  that  it  is  .  .  in  rapid 
decadence,  and  regards  the  political  future  of  the  Haytians 
as  utterly  hopeless.  At  the  termination  of  his  service 
on  the  island,  he  said  :  ( I  now  quite  agree  with  those 
who  deny  that  the  negro  can  ever  originate  a  civilization, 
and  who  assert  that  with  the  best  of  educations  he  remains 
an  inferior  type  of  man/ 


Preface 


IX 


"According  to  Sir  Spencer,  Hayti  is  sunk  in  misery, 
bloodshed,  cannibalism,  and  superstition  of  the  most  sen 
sual  and  degrading  character.  Ever  since  the  republic 
has  been  established  Haytians  have  been  opposed  to 
progress,  but  of  recent  years  retrogression  has  been 
particularly  rapid."1 

In  the  south,  where  reversion  to  West  African  society 
has  been  checked  by  white  government,  this  is  a  full 
catalogue  of  the  main  institutions  evolved  by  the  freed- 
men.  They  have  provided  themselves  with  cheaply 
built  churches,  in  which  their  frequent  and  long  worship 
is  mainly  sound  and  fury.  In  the  pinch  of  crop  cultiva 
tion  or  gathering  they  flock  away  from  the  fields  to 
excursion  trains  and  "  protracted  meetings."  Perhaps 
their  most  noticeable  institutions  are  "  societies,"  some 
prohibiting  hiring  as  domestic  servants,  except  where 
subsistence  cannot  otherwise  be  had,  and  others  pro 
viding  the  means  of  decent  burial.  Compare  these  feeble 
negro  race  performances  with  such  white  institutions, 
made  in  the  same  territory  and  at  the  same  time,  as 
Memorial  Day,  which  the  north  has  adopted;  the  Ku 
Klux  Klan;  enactment  of  stock  laws  when  the  freed- 
men's  refusal  to  split  rails  made  much  fencing  impossi 
ble  ;  and  the  white  primary. 

Institutions  —  what  I  have  just  called  the  collective 
achievement  of  a  race  —  mark  in  their  character  its 
capacity  for  improvement,  and  also  its  plane  of  develop 
ment.  When  the  negro,  with  his  self-evolved  institu 
tions,  is  compared  with  the  race  which  has  furnished 
itself  with  fit  organs  of  self-government  all  the  way  up 
from  town-meeting  to  federal  constitution,  and  is  now 

1"  Where  Black  Rules  White,"  article  by  Hugo  Erichsen,  in  The 
Pilgrim  for  July,  1905. 


x  Preface 

about  to  crown  its  grand  work  with  direct  legislation,  it 
is  like  comparing  the  camel  dressed  to  counterfeit  an 
elephant,  of  which  dear  old  Peter  Parley  told  us  in  his 
school  history,  with  a  real  elephant,  or  trying  to  make  a 
confederate  dollar  in  an  administrator's  return  of  1864 
count  as  a  gold  one. 

And  yet  the  negro,  Professor  Kelly  Miller,  replying 
to  Tom  Watson,  assumes  that  Franks,  Britons,  Germans, 
Russians,  and  Aztecs  have  severally  been  in  historical 
times  as  incapable  as  West  Africans  of  rising  from 
savagery  and  crossing  barbarism  into  civilization.  He 
outdoes  even  this  —  he  would  have  it  believed  that 
Hayti  is  now  a  close  second  behind  Japan  in  striding 
progress. 

Surely  the  good  people  of  the  north  ought  to  learn 
the  difference  between  the  negro  race  and  the  white. 
There  is  a  small  class  of  exceptional  negroes  which  is 
assumed  by  a  great  many  at  the  north  to  be  most  fair 
samples  of  the  average  negro  of  the  south.  Dr.  Washing 
ton  and  Professor  DuBois  severally  lead  the  opposing 
sections  of  this  class.  It  consists  of  authors,  editors, 
preachers,  speakers,  some  who  with  small  capital  in 
banking,  farming,  and  other  business,  have  each  by 
Booker  Washington's  blazon  been  exalted  into  a  national 
celebrity,  and  others.  Its  never-sleeping  resolve,  fondly 
cherished  by  the  greater  part,  is  to  "  break  into  "  white 
society  and  some  day  fuse  with  it.  Its  members  are 
nearly  all  at  least  half  white,  and  many  are  more  than 
half  white.  But  when  a  Bourbon  snub  to  one  of  them  is 
received,  as  it  often  is,  with  dignity  and  proper  behavior, 
Mr.  Louis  F.  Post,  and  a  few  more,  exclaim  to  the 
country,  "  See  how  this  coal-black  and  pure  negro  excels 
his  would-be  superiors  !  "  This  man,  almost  white,  is  to 


Preface  .xi 

them  a  coal-black,  genuine,  unmixed  negro.  Ought  not 
attention  to  facts  incontrovertibly  cardinal  to  rule  here 
as  everywhere  else  ?  To  what  is  due  the  great  accom 
plishment  of  Dumas,  Douglass,  and  Booker  Washington 
— to  their  negro  blood  or  to  their  white  blood  ?  If  half 
negro  blood  can  do  so  well,  why  is  it  that  pure  negro 
blood  does  not  do  far  better  ? 

I  have  seen  it  asserted  that  Professor  Kelly  Miller  is, 
pure  negro.  His  head  has  the  shape  of  a  white  man's. 
The  greyhound  crossed  once  with  the  bull-dog,  as  Youatt 
tells,  and  each  succeeding  generation  of  offspring  re- 
crossed  with  pure  greyhound  until  not  a  suggestion  of 
bull-dog  was  visible,  occurs  to  me.  Thus  there  was  bred 
a  greyhound,  possessing  the  desired  trait  of  the  bull-dog. 
Who  can  say  that  there  is  not  among  the  professor's 
American  ancestors  one  of  half  white  blood  ?  If  there 
is  in  fact  no  such,  he  is,  in  his  high  attainment,  almost  a 
lusus  naturae. 

The  north,  by  due  attention,  will  discern  that  the 
small  number  constituting  what  I  provisionally  name  the 
upper  class  of  negroes,  is  hardly  involved  in  the  race 
question. 

The  negroes  in  the  south  outside  of  the  upper  class— 
the  latter  not  amounting  to  more  than  five  percent  of 
the  entire  black  population — are  slowly  falling  away 
from  the  benign  elevation  above  West  Africa  wrought 
by  slavery.  That  they  are  here,  is  felt  every  year  to  be 
more  injurious.  They  greatly  retard  the  evolution  of  a 
white-labor  class,  which  has  become  the  head-spring  of 
all  social  amelioration  in  enlightened  communities. 
There  appears  to  be  but  one  salvation  for  them  if  they 
stay,  which  is  fusion  with  the  whites.  Though  Herbert 
Foster,  and  a  few  others,  confidently  assume  that  our 


xii  Preface 

weakening  Caucasian  strain  would  be  bettered  by  in 
fusion  of  African  blood,  we  see  that  while  amalgamation 
would  bless  the  negro  it  would  incalculably  injure  us. 
It  would  be  stagnation  and  blight  for  centuries,  not  only 
to  the  south  but  to  the  north  also.  Northerners  are 
more  and  more  attracted  to  the  south  by  climate  and 
other  advantages,  and  intermarriage  between  the  natives 
of  each  section  increases  all  the  while.  The  powers, 
protecting  America,  inscrutably  to  contemporaries  kept 
busy  certain  agencies  that  saved  the  union.  It  seems  to 
me  that  these  same  powers  are  now  in  both  sections 
increasing  white  hostility  to  the  blacks,  of  purpose  to 
prevent  their  getting  firm  foothold  and  becoming  de 
sirable  in  marriage  to  poorer  whites.  One  will  think  at 
once  of  the  frequent  lynchings  in  the  south.  But  let 
him  also  think  of  how  the  strikers  in  Chicago  were 
moved  to  far  greater  passion  by  the  few  black  than  the 
many  white  strike-breakers,  the  late  inexplicable  anti- 
negro  riot  in  New  York  City,  and  the  negro  church 
dynamited  the  other  day  in  Carlisle,  Indiana.  These 
powers,  who  have  protected  our  country  from  the  first 
settlement  of  the  English  upon  the  Atlantic  coast  down 
to  the  present  time,  appear  to  speak  more  plainly  every 
day  the  fiat,  "  If  Black  and  White  are  not  separated, 
Black  shall  perish  utterly."  I  am  convinced  that  at  the 
close  of  the  century,  if  this  separation  has  not  been  made 
long  before,  Professor  Willcox's  apparently  conservative 
estimate  of  what  will  then  be  their  numbers  will  prove 
to  be  gross  exaggeration.  In  my  judgment  he  comes 
far  short  of  allowing  the  anti-fusion  forces  their  full 
destructiveness. 

Let  the  north  purge  itself  from  all  delusion  as  to  the 
negro,  and  help  the  south  do  him  justice  and  loving 


Preface  xiii 

kindness,  by  transplanting  him  into  favorable  environ 
ment. 

2.  It  is  high  time  that  the  Ku  Klux  be  understood. 
When  in  1867  it  was  strenuously  attempted  to  give  rule 
to  scalawags  and  negroes,  the  very  best  of  the  south  led 
the  unanimous  revolt.  Their  first  taste  of  political  power 
incited  the  negroes  to  license  and  riot  imperilling  every 
condition  of  decent  life.  In  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  the 
Ku  Klux  organized.  It  mustered,  not  assassins,  thugs, 
and  cutthroats,  as  has  been  often  alleged,  but  the  choicest 
southern  manhood.  Every  good  woman  knew  that  the 
order  was  now  the  solitary  defence  of  her  purity,  and 
she  consecrated  it  with  all-availing  prayers.  In  Georgia 
we  won  the  election  of  December,  1870,  in  the  teeth 
of  gigantic  odds.  This  decisive  deliverance  from  the 
most  monstrous  and  horrible  misrule  recorded  among 
Anglo-Saxons  was  the  achievement  of  the  Ku  Klux. 
Its  high  mission  performed,  the  Klan,  burning  its  dis 
guises,  ritual,  and  other  belongings,  disbanded  two  or 
three  months  later.  Its  reputation  is  not  to  be  sullied 
by  what  masked  men  —  bogus  Ku  Klux,  as  we,  the  genu 
ine,  called  them  —  did  afterwards.  The  exalted  glorifica 
tion  of  Dixon  is  not  all  of  the  Klan's  desert.  It  becomes 
dearer  in  memory  every  year.  I  shall  always  remem 
ber  with  pride  my  service  in  the  famous  8th  Georgia 
Volunteers.  I  was  with  it  in  the  bloody  pine  thicket 
at  First  Manassas,  where  it  outfought  four  times  its  own 
number;  at  Gettysburg,  where,  although  thirty-two  out 
of  its  thirty-six  officers  were  killed  or  wounded,  there 
was  no  wavering;  and  in  many  other  perilous  places, 
the  last  being  Farmville,  two  days  before  Appomattox, 
where  this  regiment  and  its  sworn  brother,  the  7th 
Georgia,  coming  up  on  the  run,  grappled  hand-to-hand 
with  a  superior  force  pushing  back  Mahone,  and  won 


xiv  Preface 

the  field.  But  I  am  prouder  of  my  career  in  the  Ku 
Klux  Klan.  The  part  of  it  under  my  command  rescued 
Oglethorpe  county,  in  which  the  negroes  had  some  thou 
sand  majority,  at  the  presidential  election  of  1868,  —  the 
very  first  opportunity,  —  and  held  what  had  been  the 
home  of  William  H.  Crawford,  George  R.  Gilmer,  and 
Joseph  H.  Lumpkin,  until  permanent  victory  perched 
upon  the  banners  of  the  white  race  in  Georgia. 

3.  I  observe  that  the  north  begins  in  some  sort  the 
learning  of  the  two  lessons  above  mentioned.  But  now 
comes  one  which  seems  hard  indeed.  Calhoun,  Toombs, 
Davis,  and  the  other  pro-slavery  leaders,  ought  to  be 
thoroughly  studied  and  impartially  estimated.  They  were 
not  agitators,  nor  factionists,  nor  conspirators.  They  were 
the  extreme  of  conservatism.  Their  conscientious  faith 
fulness  to  country  has  never  been  surpassed.  Their 
country  was  the  south,  whose  meat  and  bread  depended 
upon  slavery.  The  man  whose  sight  can  pierce  the 
heavy  mists  of  the  slavery  struggle  still  so  dense  cannot 
find  in  the  world  record  of  glorious  stands  for  countries 
doomed  by  fate  superiors  in  moral  worth  and  great  ex 
ploit.  In  their  careers  are  all  the  comfort,  dignity,  and 
beauty  of  life,  supreme  virtue,  and  happiness  of  that  old 
south,  inexpressibly  fair,  sweet  and  dear  to  us  who  lived 
in  it ;  and  in  these  careers  are  also  all  the  varied  details 
of  its  inexpressibly  pathetic  ruin.  What  is  higher  hu 
manity  than  to  grieve  with  those  who  grieve  ?  Brothers 
and  sisters  of  the  north,  you  will  never  find  your  higher 
selves  until  you  fitly  admire  the  titanic  fight  which  these 
champions  made  for  their  sacred  cause,  and  drop  genuine 
tears  over  their  heart-breaking  failure. 

The  foregoing  summarizes  the  larger  obstacles  which 


Preface  xv 

bar  true  sight  of  the  south  and  the  north.  The  devastation 
attending  Sherman's  march  beyond  Atlanta,  the  alleged 
inhumanity  at  Andersonville,  and  many  other  things  that 
were  bitterly  complained  of  during  the  brothers'  war,  and 
afterwards,  by  one  side  or  the  other,  seem  to  me  almost 
forgotten  and  forgiven.  Brothers  who  wore  the  gray 
with  me,  brothers  who  wore  the  blue  against  me,  I  would 
have  all  of  you  freed  from  the  delusions  which  still  keep 
you  from  that  perfect  love  which  Webster,  Lincoln,  and 
Stephens  gave  south  and  north  alike.  I  am  sure  that 
you  must  make  the  corrections  indicated  above  before 
you  can  rightly  begin  the  all-important  subject  of  this 
book.  With  this  admonition  I  commit  you  to  the 
opening  chapter,  which  I  hope  you  will  find  to  be  a  fit 
introduction. 

JOHN  C.   REED. 

ATLANTA,  GA., 

September,  1905. 


Contents 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.   INTRODUCTORY i 

II.   A  BEGINNING  MADE  WITH  SLAVERY 35 

III.  UNAPPEASABLE  ANTAGONISM  OF  FREE  AND  SLAVE 

LABOR 45 

IV.  GENESIS,  COURSE,  AND  GOAL  OF  SOUTHERN  NATION 

ALIZATION     51 

V.   AMERICAN   NATIONALIZATION,  AND  HOW  rr  MADE 

THE  BOND  OF  UNION  STRONGER  AND  STRONGER  62 

VI.   ROOT-AND-BRANCH  ABOLITIONISTS  AND  FIRE-EATERS  84 

VII.   CALHOUN 93 

VIII.   WEBSTER 130 

IX.   "UNCLE  TOM'S  CABIN" 161 

X.   SLAVERY  IMPELLED  INTO  A  DEFENSIVE  AGGRESSIVE  208 

XI.  TOOMBS 212 

XII.   HELP  TO  THE  UNION  CAUSE  BY  POWERS  IN  THE 

UNSEEN 282 

XIII.  JEFFERSON  DAVIS 296 

XIV.  THE  CURSE  AND  BLESSING  OF  SLAVERY  .     .     .     .  330 
XV.   THE  BROTHERS  ON  EACH  SIDE  WERE  TRUE  PATRI 
OTS  AND    MORALLY   RIGHT  —  BOTH  THOSE 
WHO  FOUGHT   FOR  THE  UNION  AND  THOSE 
WHO  FOUGHT  FOR  THE  CONFEDERACY     .    .     .  346 


xviii  Contents 

CHAPTER 

XVI.   THE   RACE    QUESTION:    GENERAL   AND    INTRO 
DUCTORY    359 

XVII.   THE  RACE  QUESTION:  THE  SITUATION  IN  DETAIL     378 

APPENDIX,   "  THE  OLD  AND  NEW  SOUTH  " 429 

INDEX 45  * 


THE    BROTHERS5    WAR 


CHAPTER  I 
INTRODUCTORY 

THE  inhabitants  of  the  English  colonies  in  Can 
ada,  Australia,  and  New  Zealand  are  all  of  the 
same  race,  language,  religion,  and  institutions 
of  government.  Such  homogeneousness,  as  has  long 
been  recognized,  works  powerfully  for  the  political  coa 
lescence  of  separate  communities.  With  the  adjacent 
ones  of  the  colonies  just  mentioned  there  has  always 
been  trend  to  such  coalescence,  as  is  impressively  illus 
trated  by  the  recent  establishment  of  the  Australian 
Federation.  The  thirteen  colonies  out  of  which  the 
United  States  developed  were  likewise  English,  and 
there  was  the  same  homogeneousness  in  their  popula 
tion,  which  made  in  due  time,  and  also  maintained  for 
a  few  generations,  a  union  of  them  all  —  a  continental 
union.  But  there  had  crept  in  a  heterogeneity,  over 
looked  for  many  years,  during  which  time  it  acquired 
such  force  that  it  at  last  overcame  the  homogeneous- 
ness  just  emphasized  and  carried  a  part  of  the  inhabit 
ants  of  the  United  States  out  of  the  continental  union. 
African  slavery  dying  out  in  the  north,  but  prospering 
in  the  south,  was  this  heterogeneity.  By  a  most  natural 
course  the  south  grew  into  a  nation  —  the  Confederate 
States  —  whose  end  and  purpose  was  to  protect  slavery, 


.•:;". •••/:::  The  "Brothers'  War 


which  had  become  its  fundamental  economical  interest, 
against  the  north  standing  by  the  original  union,  and 
which  having  gained  control  of  the  federal  government 
was  about  to  use  its  powers  to  extirpate  slavery.  The 
continental  or  Pan-American  nation  —  the  American 
union,  as  we  most  generally  think  of  it  —  could  not 
brook  dismemberment,  nor  tolerate  a  continental  rival, 
and  consequently  it  warred  upon  and  denationalized 
the  Confederate  States.  The  last  two  sentences  tell 
how  the  brothers'  war  was  caused,  what  was  its  stake  on 
each  side,  and  the  true  result.  This  compendious  sum 
mary  is  to  serve  as  a  proposition,  the  proof  of  which  we 
now  purpose  to  outline. 

Our  first  step  is  to  emphasize  how  the  free-labor  sys 
tem  which  prevailed  in  the  north,  and  the  slave-labor 
system  which  prevailed  in  the  south,  were  utterly  in 
compatible.  Free  labor  is  far  cheaper  and  more  effi 
cient  than  slave  labor.  It  had  consequently  superseded 
slavery  in  the  entire  enlightened  world.  But  certain 
exceptional  peculiarities  of  climate,  soil,  and  products 
planted  and  made  slavery  profitable  in  the  south. 

To  maintain  the  market  value  of  the  slaves  two  things 
were  needed:  (i)  the  competition  of  free  labor  and  the 
import  of  cheap  slaves  must  be  rigorously  prevented ; 
(2)  a  vast  reserve  of  virgin  soil,  both  to  replace  the 
plantations  rapidly  wearing  out  and  to  afford  more  land 
for  the  multiplying  slaves.  The  fact  last  mentioned  made 
it  vital  to  the  south  to  appropriate  such  parts  of  the  soil 
of  the  Territories  as  suited  her  cotton  and  other  staples. 
Therefore  whenever  she  made  such  an  appropriation  she 
turned  it  into  a  slave  State;  for  thus  the  competition 
of  free  labor  would  be  effectually  excluded  therefrom. 
The  much  more  rapid  increase  of  her  population  made 
appropriation  of  lands  in  the  Territories  likewise  vital 
to  the  north.  Hers  were  all  free-labor  interests,  as  the 


Introductory  3 

south's  were  all  slave-labor  interests ;  and  whenever  the 
former  appropriated  any  of  the  Territories,  she  made 
a  State  prohibiting  slavery  in  order  to  protect  her  free- 
labor  interests.  The  north  was  not  excluded  by  nature 
from  any  part  of  the  public  domain  as  the  other  section 
was.  Her  free  labor  could  be  made  productive  every 
where  in  it,  and  she  really  needed  the  whole. 

Thus  the  brothers  of  the  north  and  the  brothers  of 
the  south  commenced  to  strive  with  one  another  over 
dividing  their  great  inheritance.  The  former  wanted 
lands  for  themselves,  their  sons,  and  daughters  in  all  the 
Territories  possible  made  into  States  protecting  their 
free-labor  system ;  the  latter  wanted  all  of  the  Territories 
suiting  them  made  into  States  protecting  their  slave- 
labor  system.  What  ought  especially  to  be  recognized 
by  us  now  is  that  this  contention  was  between  good, 
honest,  industrious,  plain,  free-labor  people  on  one  side, 
and  good,  honest,  industrious,  plain,  slave-labor  people 
on  the  other,  those  on  each  side  doing  their  best,  as  is 
the  most  common  thing  in  the  world,  to  gain  and  keep 
the  advantage  of  those  of  the  other.  It  was  natural,  it 
was  right,  it  was  most  laudable  that  every  householder, 
whether  northerner  or  southerner,  should  do  his  utmost 
to  get  free  land  for  himself  and  family.  This  thing  — 
which  is  really  the  central,  foundation,  and  cardinal  one 
of  all  the  things  which  brought  the  brothers'  war  — 
must  be  thoroughly  understood,  otherwise  the  longer 
one  contemplates  this  exciting  theme  the  further  astray 
from  fact  and  reasonableness  he  gets. 

The  foregoing  shows  in  brief  how  there  came  an  eager 
contention  for  the  public  lands  between  parents,  capi 
talists,  workers,  employers,  manufacturers,  and  so  forth, 
bred  to  free  labor  and  hostile  to  slavery  on  the  one  side 
—  that  is,  in  the  northern  States ;  and  the  same  classes 
bred  to  slavery  and  hostile  to  free  labor  on  the  other 


4  The  Brothers'  War 

side  —  that  is,  in  the  southern  States.  The  contention 
grew  to  a  grapple.  As  this  waxed  hotter  the  combat 
ing  brothers  became  more  and  more  angry,  called  one 
another  names  more  and  more  opprobrious ;  and  at 
last  each  side,  in  the  height  of  righteous  indignation, 
denounced  their  opponents  as  enemies  of  country,  mo 
rality,  and  religion.  Here  the  root-and-branch  aboli 
tionist  and  the  fire-eater  begin  their  several  careers, 
and  get  more  and  more  excited  audience,  the  former  in 
the  north  and  the  other  in  the  south.  Both  were  emis 
saries  of  the  fates  who  had  decreed  that  there  must  be 
a  brothers'  war,  to  the  end  that  slavery,  the  only  peril  to 
the  American  union,  be  cast  out. 

Under  the  necessity  of  defending  slavery  against  free 
labor  there  came  early  an  involuntary  concretion  of  the 
southern  States.  This  was  very  plainly  discernible 
when  the  epoch-making  convention  was  in  session.  It 
was  the  beginning  of  a  process  which  has  been  well- 
named  nation-making.  After  a  while  —  say  just  before 
Toombs  takes  the  southern  lead  from  Calhoun —  it  had 
developed,  as  we  can  now  see,  from  concretion  into 
nationalization  —  not  nationality,  yet  —  of  the  south. 
It  was  bound,  if  slavery  was  denied  expansion  over  the 
suitable  soil  of  the  Territories  and  the  restoration  of  its 
runaways,  to  cause  in  the  ripeness  of  time  secession  and 
the  founding  of  the  Confederate  States.  But  there  was 
another  nationalization,  older,  of  much  deeper  root  and 
wider  scope  —  what  we  have  already  mentioned  as  the 
continental  or  Pan-American.  Its  origin  was  in  an 
involuntary  concretion  of  all  the  colonies  —  both  the 
northern  and  the  southern  —  antedating  the  commence 
ment  of  the  southern  concretion  mentioned  a  moment 
ago.  While  southern  nationalization  was  the  guardian 
of  the  social  fabric,  the  property,  the  occupations,  the 
means  of  subsistence  of  the  southern  people,  the  greater 


Introductory  5 

nationalization  was  not  only  the  guardian  of  the  same 
interests  of  the  northern  people,  but  it  had  a  higher 
office.  This  was  in  due  time  to  give  the  whole  conti 
nent  everlasting  immunity  from  war  and  all  its  prospec 
tive,  direct,  and  consequential  evils,  by  federating  its 
different  States  under  one  democratic  government  — 
this  higher  office  was  to  perpetuate  the  American  union. 
This  continental  nationalization  had  probably  ripened 
into  at  least  the  inchoate  American  nation  by  1776.  It 
was  this  nation,  as  I  am  confident  the  historical  evidence 
rightly  read  shows,  that  made  the  declaration  of  inde 
pendence  and  the  articles  of  confederation,  carried  the 
Revolutionary  war  on  to  the  grandest  success  ever 
achieved  for  real  democracy,  and  then  drafted  and 
adopted  the  federal  constitution.  The  constitution  was 
not  the  creator  of  this  nation,  as  lawyers  and  lawyer- 
bred  statesmen  hold,  but  the  union  and  the  constitution 
are  both  its  creatures.  This  nation  is  constantly  evolv 
ing,  and  as  it  does  it  modifies  and  unmakes  the  consti 
tution  and  system  of  government  of  the  United  States, 
and  the  same  of  each  State,  as  best  suits  itself.  Why 
do  we  not  trace  our  history  from  the  first  colonial  set 
tlements  down  to  the  present,  and  learn  that  the  nation 
develops  in  both  substance  and  form,  in  territory,  in 
aims  and  purposes,  not  under  the  leading  hand  of  con 
ventions,  congress,  president,  State  authority,  of  even 
the  fully  decisive  conquest  of  seceding  States  by  the 
armies  of  the  rest,  but  by  the  guidance  of  powers  in  the 
unseen,  which  we  generally  think  of  as  the  laws  of  evo 
lution?  To  illustrate:  For  some  time  after  I  had  got 
home  from  Appomattox  I  was  disheartened,  as  many 
others  were,  at  the  menace  of  centralization.  A  vision 
of  Caleb  Cushing's  man  on  horseback — the  coming 
American  Caesar  —  seared  my  eyeballs  for  a  few  years. 
But  after  the  south  had  been  actually  reconstructed  I 


6  The  Brothers'  War 

was  cheered  to  note  that  the  evolutionary  forces  main- 
taining  and  developing  local  self-government  were 
holding  their  own  with  those  maintaining  and  develop 
ing  union.  To-day,  you  see  the  people  of  different 
localities  all  over  the  north  —  in  many  cities,  in  a  few 
States  —  driven  forward  by  a  power  which  they  do  not 
understand,  in  a  struggle  which  will  never  end  till  they 
have  rescued  their  liberties  from  the  party  machine 
wielded  everywhere  by  the  public-service  corporations. 

To  resume  what  we  were  saying  just  before  this  short 
excursion.  Of  course  when  the  drifting  of  the  south 
toward  secession  became  decided  and  strong,  Pan- 
American  nationalization  set  all  of  its  forces  in  opposing 
array.  As  soon  as  the  southern  confederacy  was  a 
fact,  the  brothers'  war  began.  I  emphasize  it  specially 
here  that  this  war  was  mortal  rencounter  between  two 
different  nations. 

The  successive  stages  by  which  her  nationalization 
impelled  the  south  to  secession  are  roughly  these: 

1.  The  concretion  mentioned  above  probably  passes 
into  the   beginning   of  nationalization   when  the  south 
was  aroused  by  the  resistance  of  the  free-labor  States 
to  the  admission  of  Missouri  as  a  slave  State.      With 
a  most   rude  shock  of  surprise  she  was  made  to  con 
template  secession.     Although  there  was   much  angry 
discussion  and  the  crisis  was  grave,  you  ought  to  note 
that  the  root-and-branch  abolitionist  and  fire-eater  had 
not   come.     That    crisis    over,   which    ended    the    first 
stage,    there  was   apparently  profound   peace    between 
the   free-labor   communities    and  the  slave-labor  com 
munities  for  some  while. 

2.  The  south  rises  against  the  tariff  which  taxes,  as 
she  believes,  her  slave-grown  staples  for  the  profit  of 
free-labor  manufacturers.     Here  the  next  stage  begins. 
Perhaps  the.  advent  of  nullification,  proposed  and  advo- 


Introductory  7 

cated  by  Calhoun  as  a  union  weapon  with  which  a  State 
might  defend  itself  against  federal  aggression,  signalizes 
this  stage  more  than  anything  else. 

3.  The  second  gives  place  to  the  third  stage,  when 
the  congressional  debate  over  anti-slavery  petitions 
opens.  It  is  in  this  stage  that  the  root-and-branch 
abolitionist  and  the  fire-eater  begin  their  really  effec 
tive  careers.  Opposition  to  the  restoration  of  fugitive 
slaves  was  spreading  through  the  north  and  steadily 
strengthening.  It  ought  to  be  realized  by  one  who 
would  understand  these  times  that  this  actual  encour 
agement  of  the  slaves  to  escape  was  a  direct  attack 
upon  slavery  in  the  southern  States,  becoming  stronger 
and  more  formidable  as  the  root-and-branch  abolition 
ists  became  more  zealous  and  influential,  and  increased 
in  numbers,  and  the  slaveholder  was  bound  to  recog 
nize  what  it  all  portended  to  him.  It  was  natural  that 
when  he  had  these  root-and-branch  abolitionists  before 
himself  in  mind,  he  should  say  of  them: 

"The  lands  of  the  Territories  suiting  slave  labor  are  much 
less  in  area  than  the  due  of  the  south  therein.  She  will  soon 
need  all  these  lands,  as  the  slaves  are  multiplying  rapidly,  and 
the  virgin  soil  of  her  older  States  is  going  fast.  With  an  excess 
of  slaves  and  a  lack  of  fit  land  soon  to  come  if  we  are  barred 
from  the  Territories,  our  property  must  depreciate  until  it  is 
utterly  worthless.  But  these  abolitionists  attempt  a  further 
injury.  They  instigate  our  slaves  to  fly  into  the  north,  and 
then  encourage  the  north  not  to  give  them  up  when  we  reclaim 
them.  They  deny  our  property  the  expansion  into  what  is 
really  our  part  of  the  Territories  which  it  ought  to  have  in  order 
to  maintain  its  value ;  and  further  they  try  to  steal  as  many  of 
our  slaves  from  us  in  the  States  as  they  can." 

This  was  the  double  peril,  as  it  were,  which  gathered 
in  full  view  against  the  south. 


8  The  Brothers'  War 

I  cannot  emphasize  it  enough  that  the  hot  indigna 
tion  of  such  as  Garrison  against  slavery  as  a  hideous 
wrong  was  not  excited  before  the  competition  between 
north  and  south  over  the  public  lands  had  become  eager 
and  all-absorbing.  It  is  nearly  always  the  case  that 
such  excitement  does  not  appear  until  long  after  an  ac 
tual  menace  by  a  rival  to  the  personal  or  selfish  interest 
of  another  has  shown  itself.  It  is  not  until  the  menace 
becomes  serious  that  the  latter  wakes  up  to  discover 
that  the  former  is  violating  some  capital  article  of  the 
decalogue.  This  was  true  of  the  root-and-branch  abo 
litionist.  And  his  high-flown  morality  was  made  still 
more  Quixotic  by  his  conscientiously  assuming  that  the 
negro  slave  was  in  all  respects  just  such  a  human  being 
as  his  white  master. 

This  third  stage  extends  from  about  January,  1836, 
until  the  country  was  alarmed  as  never  before  by  the 
controversy  of  1849-50  over  the  admission  of  California, 
in  southern  latitude,  with  an  anti-slavery  constitution. 
At  its  end  the  southern  leadership  of  Calhoun  standing 
upon  nullification,  a  remedy  that  contemplated  remain 
ing  in  the  union,  is  displaced  by  that  of  Toombs,  who 
begins  to  feel  strongly,  if  not  to  see  clearly,  that  the 
south  cannot  preserve  slavery  in  the  union. 

4.  The  fourth  stage  begins  with  the  compromise  of 
1850.  Afterwards  during  the  same  year  was  an  occur 
rence  which  cannot  be  overrated  in  importance  by  the 
student  of  these  times.  That  was  the  consideration  of 
the  pending  question  in  Georgia,  and  action  upon  it  by 
a  convention  of  delegates  elected  for  that  special  pur 
pose.  The  Georgia  Platform,  promulgated  by  that 
convention,  is  as  follows: 

"  To  the  end  that  the  position  of  this  State  may  be  clearly 
apprehended  by  her  confederates  of  the  south  and  of  the  north, 
and  that  she  may  be  blameless  of  all  future  consequences,  Be 


Introductory  9 

it  resolved  by  the  people  of  Georgia  in  convention  assembled, 
First,  that  we  hold  the  American  union  secondary  in  impor 
tance  only  to  the  rights  and  principles  it  was  designed  to  per 
petuate.  That  past  associations,  present  fruition,  and  future 
prospects,  will  bind  us  to  it  so  long  as  it  continues  to  be  the 
safeguard  of  these  rights  and  principles. 

Second.  That  if  the  thirteen  original  parties  to  the  compact, 
bordering  the  Atlantic  in  a  narrow  belt,  while  their  separate  in 
terests  were  in  embryo,  their  peculiar  tendencies  scarcely  devel 
oped,  their  Revolutionary  trials  and  triumphs  still  green  in 
memory,  found  union  impossible  without  compromise,  the 
thirty-one  of  this  day  may  well  yield  somewhat  in  the  conflict 
of  opinion  and  policy,  to  preserve  that  union  which  has  ex 
tended  the  sway  of  republican  government  over  a  vast  wilder 
ness  to  another  ocean,  and  proportionally  advanced  their 
civilization  and  national  greatness. 

Third.  That  in  this  spirit  the  State  of  Georgia  has  consid 
ered  the  action  of  congress,  embracing  a  series  of  measures  for 
the  admission  of  California  into  the  union,  the  organization  of 
territorial  governments  for  Utah  and  New  Mexico,  the  estab 
lishment  of  a  boundary  between  the  latter  and  the  State  of 
Texas,  the  suppression  of  the  slave-trade  in  the  District  of  Co 
lumbia,  and  the  extradition  of  fugitive  slaves,  and  (connected 
with  them)  the  rejection  of  propositions  to  exclude  slavery  from 
the  Mexican  Territories,  and  to  abolish  it  in  the  District  of  Co 
lumbia  ;  and,  whilst  she  does  not  wholly  approve,  will  abide  by 
it  as  a  permanent  adjustment  of  this  sectional  controversy. 

Fourth.  That  the  State  of  Georgia,  in  the  judgment  of  this 
convention,  will  and  ought  to  resist,  even  —  as  a  last  resort  — 
to  a  disruption  of  every  tie  which  binds  her  to  the  union,  any 
future  act  of  congress  abolishing  slavery  in  the  District  of  Co 
lumbia,  without  the  consent  and  petition  of  the  slaveholders 
thereof,  or  any  act  abolishing  slavery  in  places  within  the  slave- 
holding  States,  purchased  by  the  United  States  for  the  erection 
of  forts,  magazines,  arsenals,  dockyards,  and  other  like  purposes ; 
or  any  act  suppressing  the  slave-trade  between  slaveholding 
States;  or  any  refusal  to  admit  as  a  State  any  Territory  ap- 


1 


io  The  Brothers'  War 

plying,  because  of  the  existence  of  slavery  therein ;  or  any  act 
prohibiting  the  introduction  of  slaves  into  the  Territories  of 
Utah  and  New  Mexico  ;  or  any  act  repealing  or  materially  mod 
ifying  the  laws  now  in  force  for  the  recovery  of  fugitive  slaves. 

Fifth.  That  it  is  the  deliberate  opinion  of  this  convention, 
that  upon  the  faithful  execution  of  the  fugitive  slave  bill  by  the 
proper  authorities  depends  the  preservation  of  our  much  loved 


This  platform  was  the  work  of  statesmen  who  had 
added  to  the  wisdom  of  the  fathers,  making  the  declara 
tion  of  independence,  articles  of  confederation,  and  the 
great  constitution,  worthy  wisdom  of  their  own  from  a 
far  more  varied  experience  and  better  training  in  gov 
ernment.  These  statesmen  came  indiscriminately  from 
all  parties.  The  people  in  the  State,  from  the  highest 
in  authority  through  every  intermediate  circle  down  to 
the  humblest  citizen,  deliberately,  without  excitement 
or  passion,  endorsed  this  platform  with  practical  unanim 
ity.  And  all  parties  stood  upon  it  to  the  end.  This 
was  not  an  ignorant,  debased,  corrupt,  unrighteous 
people;  but  it  was  even  better  in  everything  that  makes 
a  people  great  and  good  than  the  former  generation 
which  had  given  the  country  Washington  and  Jefferson. 

Especially  should  the  student  meditate  what  this 
solemn  declaration  shows  was  the  sentiment  of  the 
people  of  the  State  at  that  time  towards  the  American 
union.  Every  one  of  the  five  planks  contains  its  own 
most  convincing  proof  of  deepest  devotion.  Think  of 
the  child  who  at  last  resolves  to  fly  from  the  home  which 
had  been  inexpressibly  sweet  until  the  stepmother  came ; 
of  the  father  whose  conscience  commands  him  to  save 
the  mother's  life  by  killing  the  assailing  son ;  of  what 
the  true  Othello  felt  when  he  had  to  execute  the  precious 
Desdemona  for  what  he  believed  to  be  her  falseness  — 
think  of  these  examples,  if  you  would  realize  the  agony 


Introductory  1 1 

of  the  better  classes  of  the  southern  people  when  they 
at  last  discovered  that  the  union  had  changed  from 
being  their  best  friend  into  their  most  fell  enemy. 

The  Georgia  Platform  was  actually  drafted,  I  believe, 
by  A.  H.  Stephens,  then  a  whig.  It  was  probably 
moulded  in  its  substance  —  especially  in  the  fourth  and 
fifth  planks  —  more  by  Toombs,  also  a  whig,  than  any 
other.  Howell  Cobb,  a  democrat,  approved,  and  was 
elected  governor  upon  it  the  next  year,  receiving  the 
ardent  support  of  Toombs  and  Stephens.  Toombs  was 
just  forty,  Stephens  a  year  or  two,  and  Cobb  some  six 
or  seven  years,  less  than  forty.  These  three  were  the 
leading  authors.  Note  how  much  younger  they  were 
than  Calhoun,  who  had  a  few  months  before  died  in  his 
sixty-ninth  year.  The  platform  indicates  the  new  senti 
ment,  not  only  of  Georgia  but  of  the  entire  south.  When 
its  contents  are  compared  with  the  doctrine  of  nullifi 
cation,  it  clearly  shows  as  the  production  of  a  new  era  in 
the  history  of  southern  nationalization ;  for  it  marks 
what  we  may  somewhat  metaphorically  distinguish  as 
the  close  of  the  pro-union  and  opening  of  the  anti-union 
defence  of  slavery.  The  proclivity  to  secession  uninter 
ruptedly  increases  from  this  point  on. 

I  would  have  it  noted  that  the  tactics  of  this  fourth 
stage  are  unaggressive.  The  Georgia  Platform  was  no 
more  than  most  grave  and  serious  warning  against  being 
driven  to  the  wall.  It  did  not  bully  nor  hector.  The 
threat  of  what  must  be  done  in  case  certain  menaced 
blows  to  slavery  were  struck  was  so  calmly,  deprecat- 
ingly,  and  decorously  made,  that  one  wonders  it  was 
not  heeded.  He  ceases  to  wonder  only  when  history 
reveals  to  him  that  fate  had  become  adverse  to  the  good 
cause  of  this  noble  people. 

5.  A  change  of  tactics  characterizes  the  fifth  stage. 
The  faster  growing  population  of  the  north,  furnishing 


12  The  Brothers'  War 

settlers  in  far  greater  number  than  that  of  the  south, 
was  sweeping  away  all  chance  of  new  slave  States. 
The  situation  commanded  that  the  defence  of  the  south 
change  to  the  aggressive,  just  as  Stoessel  was  constrained 
the  other  day  to  take  the  offensive  against  203  Meter 
Hill.  In  the  first  sortie  the  south  got  the  Missouri  com 
promise  repealed.  Then  she  tried  to  make  a  slave  State 
of  Kansas.  She  failed.  When  she  had  lost  Kansas  — 
like  California  in  southern  latitude  —  she  could  not  help 
recognizing  that  the  outlook  for  slavery  in  the  union  had 
become  desperate.  My  northern  countrymen,  if  you 
were  as  free  from  the  surviving  influence  of  the  old 
intersectional  quarrel  as  we  all  ought  to  be,  you  would 
applaud  the  ability  and  valor  with  which  the  south  had 
fought  this  losing  fight  for  the  welfare  and  comfort 
of  her  people;  and  especially  would  you  admire  her 
supreme  effort  in  behalf  both  of  that  people,  and  also 
of  the  union  which  she  loved  next  to  the  cause  of  her 
people.  Not  quailing  before  odds  incalculable,  she  was 
as  brave  and  self-sustained  as  Miltiades,  coming  forth 
with  his  little  ten  thousand  to  fight  the  host  of  Mar- 
donius  hand-to-hand.  The  only  thing  for  her  now  was 
new  aggression,  to  make  a  demand  never  seriously 
urged  before.  That  was  that  congress  protect  the 
master's  property  in  every  Territory  until  it  became  a 
State.  If  this  were  done,  she  could,  perhaps,  keep 
slavery  in  some  of  the  Territories  long  enough  for  it  to 
strike  root  permanently.  If  it  could  not  be  done  she 
must  choose  between  her  own  cause  and  the  union. 
Her  persistence  in  the  demand  mentioned  —  and  she  was 
obliged  to  persist — split  the  democratic  party,  which 
had  until  this  time  been  her  main  upholder  in  the  union. 
The  north  refused  her  demand  by  electing  Lincoln. 
This  was  the  end  of  the  fifth  stage.  Her  nationality 
had  become  fully  ripe.  She  seceded  into  the  Confed- 


Introductory  1 3 

erate  States,  her  only  opportunity  of  conserving  the 
property  and  occupation  interests  of  her  people.  Of 
course  she  expected  to  get  her  part  of  the  public 
domain,  and  to  enforce  extradition  of  her  fugitive 
slaves. 

The  foregoing  is  the  barest  outline  of  the  rise  and 
conflict  between  the  two  nationalizations.  The  subject 
has  been  neglected  too  long.  There  begins  to  be  some 
faint  understanding  of  the  greater  nationalization,  but 
that  understanding  is  far  short  of  completeness.  There 
is  hardly  a  suspicion  of  the  other.  And  yet  as  to  our 
own  special  subject  it  is  really  the  more  important,  for 
in  it  is  the  initiative  of  the  brothers'  war.  There  has 
been  made  by  nobody  any  investigation  at  all  of  the 
main  parts  of  that  train  of  events  which  I  designate  as 
southern  nationalization.  Not  Wilson's  "  The  Rise  and 
Fall  of  the  Slave  Power  in  the  United  States,"  nor  any 
book  by  a  partisan  of  either  side  in  the  struggle,  gives 
any  help  towards  this  investigation.  The  historical 
sources  have  never  been  studied  at  all;  such  as  the 
colonial  records  now  publishing,  the  records  and  papers 
of  the  probate  court  in  some  of  the  older  and  more 
important  counties  of  the  south  —  especially  the  returns 
of  administrators,  executors,  and  guardians,  and  files  of 
newspapers  advertising  their  citations.  Here  can  be 
found  the  prevailing  prices  of  slaves,  their  rate  of  multi 
plication,  all  details  of  their  management,  from  the  very 
beginning.  The  trial  and  equity  courts  contain  records 
of  litigation  about  slaves ;  of  advice  of  chancellors  to 
trustees  seeking  to  make  or  change  investment;  of 
wills  manumitting  slaves  ;  and  a  thousand  other  relevant 
matters.  The  course  of  legislation  as  to  slaves  from 
the  first  to  the  end  is  also  important.  From  these, 
from  local  literature  such  as  "Georgia  Scenes,"  "  Simon 
Suggs,"  biography,  and  various  pamphlets,  and  other 


14  The  Brothers*  War 

original  sources,  —  far  better  historical  evidence  than 
any  which  is  now  generally  invoked,  —  can  be  learned 
the  real  facts  as  to  the  growth  of  slavery ;  and  especially 
how  in  its  economic  potency  consequent  upon  the 
invention  of  the  gin  it  supplanted  or  made  dependent 
upon  itself  all  other  property,  and  became  the  solitary 
foundation  of  every  kind  of  production  and  mode  of 
making  a  living ;  so  that  even  by  1820  to  abolish  slavery 
would  have  been  almost  to  beggar  the  southern  people 
for  two  or  three  generations.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
Professor  Brown,  finding  the  opportunity  which  he 
desires,  may  yet  exhaust  not  only  the  sources  I  have 
mentioned,  but  also  important  ones  that  I  have  not  even 
thought  of,  and  give  the  true  ante-bellum  history  of  the 
lower  south.  Some  such  work  is  necessary  to  explain 
the  active  principle,  the  raison  d'etre  of  southern  nation 
alization. 

How  north  and  south  were  sundered  by  the  different 
nationalizations  is  yet  to  be  told  in  full  detail  without 
any  censure  of  the  people  of  either.  Practically  every 
American  was  born  into  an  occupation  or  way  of  life 
connected  with  or  founded  upon  either  slave  or  free 
labor  interests,  and  so  was  born  into  one  or  the  other 
of  these  two  nationalizations,  and  his  conscience  coerced 
him  to  stay  with  it.  These  nationalizations  made  two 
different  publics  and  two  different  countries  in  the  United 
States.  After  the  slavery  agitation  had  become  active 
the  masses  in  either  public  knew  but  little  of  the  other, 
and  cared  for  it  less ;  and  when  war  broke  out  between 
the  two  countries  every  man,  woman,  and  child  was  ready 
to  die,  if  there  was  need,  for  his  own.  When  the  history 
of  the  times  has  been  impartially  and  adequately  written 
the  world  will  recognize  that  the  patriotism  and  moral 
worth  of  neither  side  excels  that  of  the  other,  and  it  will 
crown  both. 


Introductory  1 5 

The  evolution  indicated  above  produced  not  only  the 
two  hostile  peoples,  but  also  their  leaders  and  represent 
atives  of  every  class.  I  have  taken  pains  in  a  relevant 
chapter  to  show  how  the  fire-eaters  and  the  root-and- 
branch  abolitionists  were  at  last  brought  upon  the  stage. 
Every  fierce  controversy  in  history  has  had  their  like 
on  each  side.  Their  coming  is  late.  The  antagonists 
have  become  excited.  The  intelligence  guiding  evolu 
tion  deceives  them  as  to  the  parts  they  must  play.  They 
believe  that  their  mission  is  to  arouse  the  public  con 
science  in  order  to  right  some  alleged  moral  wrong. 
Their  real  mission  is  to  excite  to  angry  action.  Cicero 
condemns  the  Peripatetics  for  asserting  that  proneness 
to  anger  has  been  usefully  given  by  nature.1  He  over 
looked  the  fact  that  the  outbreak  of  the  passion  is 
intended  to  spur  us  into  doing  something  important  for 
our  own  protection;  and  that  it  is  therefore  an  indis 
pensable  weapon  in  our  self-defensive  armory.  These 
fanatics,  as  we  often  call  them,  instigated  north  and  south 
to  quarrel  more  and  more  fiercely,  and  finally  to  fight. 
The  purpose  of  the  powers  in  the  unseen  in  causing  the 
fight  has  already  been  stated. 

What  especially  concerns  us  here  is  that  we  avoid 
adhering  to  the  mistakes  of  these  partisans  which  still 
have  injurious  effect  upon  opinion.  Thus  the  fire-eater 
could  see  no  good  whatever  in  the  yankees,  as  he  called 
them,  denying  them  honesty,  trustworthiness,  and  other 
elementary  virtues ;  accusing  them  of  robbing  us  by  the 
tariff  and  other  measures,  and  hating  us  for  the  pros 
perity  and  comfort  which  the  slavery  system  had  blessed 
us  with.  Other  of  his  false  charges  are  still  lodged  in 
the  memory  of  some  influential  southerners.  But  the 
fire-eater's  predictions  were  all  completely  falsified  by 
the  result  of  the  war ;  and  he  has  become  so  much  dis- 
1  De  Officiis,  i,  §  89. 


1 6  The  Brothers'  War 

credited  as  an  authority,  there  is  no  very  great  need  for 
consuming  much  time  and  effort  in  correcting  his 
misstatements.  On  the  other  hand  the  decisive  suc 
cess  of  their  side  has  kept  thousands  at  the  north  fully 
believing  the  wildest  fabrications  of  the  root-and-branch 
abolitionists.  The  latter  believed  that  the  African  slave 
of  the  south  was  just  such  a  human  being,  ready  for 
liberty  and  self-government  in  all  particulars,  as  civilized 
and  enlightened  whites.  They  believed  that  the  con 
dition  of  his  immediate  ancestors  in  West  Africa  was 
one  of  high  physical,  mental,  moral,  and  social  develop 
ment,  and  that  if  there  was  in  him  now  any  inferiority 
to  his  master  it  was  entirely  due  to  the  sinister  influence 
of  American  slavery.  They  also  believed  that  the  sys 
tem  was  fraught  with  such  cruelties  as  frequent  separa 
tion  of  man  and  wife  and  of  mother  and  young  children, 
under-  feeding  and  clothing,  and  grinding  overwork, — 
that,  in  short,  the  average  slave  was  daily  exposed  to 
something  like  the  torture  of  the  Inquisition.  All  this 
was  invention.  American  slavery  found  the  negro  gab 
bling  inarticulately  and  gave  him  English;  it  found 
him  a  cannibal  and  fetishist  and  gave  him  the  Chris 
tian  religion ;  it  found  him  a  slave  to  whom  his  savage 
master  allowed  no  rights  at  all,  and  it  gave  him  an 
enlightened  master  bound  by  law  to  accord  him  the 
most  precious  human  rights;  it  found  him  an  inveterate 
idler  and  gave  him  the  work  habit;  it  found  him  promis 
cuous  in  the  horde  and  gave  him  the  benign  beginning 
of  the  monogamic  family,  —  in  short,  as  now  appears 
very  strongly  probable,  American  slavery  gave  him 
his  sole  opportunity  to  rise  above  the  barbarism  of  West 
Africa. 

These  tremendous  mistakes  of  fact,  after  knitting  the 
north  in  solid  phalanx  against  dividing  the  Territories 
with  the  south  and  restoring  fugitive  slaves  and  thus 


Introductory  17 

hasting  forward  the  war,  prompted  that  folly  of  follies 
the  fifteenth  amendment,  and  have  ever  since  kept  the 
north  from  understanding  the  race  question. 

I  am  sure  that  it  is  high  time  that  we  of  each  section 
should  school  ourselves  into  impartially  appreciating 
the  civil  leaders  of  the  other  side.  The  south  has  made 
more  progress  towards  this  than  the  north.  Certain 
causes  have  operated  to  help  her  onward.  One  of  these 
is  that  practically  all  of  us  recognize  it  is  far  better  for 
the  section  that  the  union  side  won.  Another  is  that 
the  great  mass  have  learned  that  slavery  both  effemi 
nated  and  paralyzed  the  whites  and  was  a  smothering 
incubus  upon  our  due  social  and  material  development. 
It  is  natural  that  although  we  give  our  pro-slavery  polit 
ical  leaders  and  Jie  confederate  soldiers  increasing  love, 
we  should  more  and  more  commend  the  pro-union  and 
anti-slavery  activity  of  the  northern  statesmen.  Nothing 
like  this  has  led  the  north  to  revise  the  reprobation 
which  in  the  heat  and  passion  of  the  conflict  it  bestowed 
upon  the  public  men  of  the  south.  If  I  ever  read  a 
good  word  from  a  northern  writer  as  to  them,  it  is  for 
something  in  their  careers  disconnected  with  the  south 
ern  cause.  Even  Mr.  Rhodes,  the  ablest  and  most 
impartial  of  northern  historians  of  the  times,  finds  in 
Calhoun  only  a  closet  spinner  of  utterly  impractical 
theories.  Further,  I  could  hardly  believe  it  when  I 
read  it — and  it  is  hard  for  me  to  believe  it  yet  —  that, 
citing  some  flippant  words  of  Parton  in  which  a  slander 
of  contemporary  politics  is  toothsomely  repeated  as  his 
voucher,  he  flatly  charges  the  lion-hearted  knight  of 
the  south  with  playing  the  coward  in  the  most  heroic 
episode  of  his  grand  career.  My  faith  is  strong  that 
this  mode  of  treating  the  good  and  great  southern  lead 
ers  will  soon  go  out  of  fashion. 

I  am  greatly  in  earnest  to  vindicate  these  leaders  — 


1 8  The  Brothers'  War 

especially  Calhoun,  Toombs,  and  Davis.  Much  of  the 
public  life  of  each  one  was  concerned  with  matters  of 
national  interest.  To  this  I  give  special  attention,  for  I 
want  my  northern  readers  to  know  what  true  Americans 
they  all  were.  Without  this  they  cannot  have  their  full 
glory.  And  their  justification  is  that  of  their  people. 
Such  effective  leaders  are  always  representative.  It  is 
a  misnomer  to  call  them  leaders.  They  were  really  fol 
lowers  of  their  constituents  who  were  struggling  for  the 
subsistence  of  themselves  and  their  dear  ones.  During 
this  time  Calhoun,  Toombs,  and  Davis,  had  they  not 
labored  in  every  way  to  protect  this  great  cause  —  the 
cause  of  their  own  country  —  as  they  did,  would  have 
been  as  recreant  as  the  confederate  soldier,  skulking 
away  from  the  line  defending  home  and  fireside.  When 
our  country  is  in  peril  the  unseen  lords  of  its  destiny 
do  not  take  any  one  of  us,  from  the  greatest  to  the 
humblest,  into  their  confidence  as  to  the  event.  Every 
man  of  us  must  support  in  politics  and  on  the  field  the 
cause  of  our  people.  If  that  must  go  down  it  will  make 
defeat  glorious  to  go  down  with  it  as  contentedly  and 
bravely  as  did  Demosthenes,  Cicero,  and  Davis. 

Whoever  diligently  studies  the  facts  will  be  convinced 
that  southern  nationalization,  with  a  power  superior 
to  human  resistance,  carried  the  southern  people  into 
secession,  and  that  their  so-called  leaders  were  carried 
with  them.  He  will  discern  that  the  parts  of  the  latter 
were  merely  to  serve  as  floats  to  mark  the  course  of 
the  current  beneath.  Therefore  be  just  to  these  leaders 
for  justice'  sake.  Further,  you  brothers  and  sisters  of 
the  north  ought  to  bethink  yourselves  and  keep  in  mind 
how  we  regard  them.  The  reputation  of  these  our  civil 
champions  and  their  graves  are  as  dear  to  us  as  those 
of  our  mothers.  If  you  adopted  an  orphan,  you  would 
feel  it  to  be  unpardonable  to  speak  slightingly  to  him 


Introductory  19 

of  his  parents.  Cleopatra,  her  conqueror  sending  her 
word  to  study  on  what  fair  demands  she  would  have, 
answered : 

"  That  majesty  to  keep  decorum,  must 
No  less  beg  than  a  kingdom." 

Let  those  who  wore  the  blue  and  their  descendants  think 
over  it  long  enough  to  realize  how  unspeakably  low  and 
treacherous  it  would  be  in  us  to  abet  any  condemnation 
whatever  of  these  men  for  their  anti-union  acts —  these 
men  whom  we  or  our  fathers  voted  for  and  supported 
because  of  these  acts.  If  you  deny  justification  to  them, 
how  can  we  keep  decorum  in  accepting  it  ourselves  ? 

I  would  say  one  more  word,  where  perhaps  I  am  a 
little  over-earnest.  These  southern  leaders  have  con 
tributed  richly  to  the  treasures  of  American  history. 
Their  moral  worth,  —  nay,  moral  grandeur, —  their  great 
natural  parts,  their  statesmanly  ability,  their  eloquence, 
their  heroic  fidelity  to  their  people,  —  by  these  each  has 
won  indefeasible  title  to  the  best  of  renown.  Whenever 
the  north  has  made  real  study  of  them,  she  will  give 
them  as  generous  admiration  as  she  now  does  to  the 
charge  of  Pickett.  I  have  done  my  utmost  to  present 
Calhoun,  Toombs,  and  Davis  faithfully,  using,  as  I  believe, 
all  the  main  facts  which  are  relevant  and  incontroverti 
ble.  I  am  sure  that  every  northerner  who  reads  them, 
after  he  has  laid  aside  all  prejudice,  will  admit  that  I  did 
not  claim  too  much  when  I  was  recounting  their  merits 
a  moment  ago. 

I  invite  close  consideration  of  all  that  I  say  of  Webster. 
The  purpose  of  providence,  bestowing  birthplace,  early 
environment,  training,  and  career  as  preparation  for  a 
paramount  mission,  shows  more  conspicuously  in  him 
than  in  any  other  of  America's  great,  with  the  solitary 
exception  of  Washington.  How  the  names  of  detract 
ing  agitators  and  mere  politicians  written  over  his  in  the 


20  The  Brothers'  War 

temple  of  fame  are  now  fading  off,  and  how  the  invinci 
ble  and  lovable  champion  of  the  brothers'  union  looms 
larger  upon  us  every  year  ! 

I  am  painfully  conscious  of  how  certain  omissions, 
unavoidable  in  my  limited  space,  mar  the  symmetry  of 
my  ground-plan.  The  average  reader  will  probably 
think  that  I  ought  to  have  sketched  Lincoln,  Grant,  and 
Lee.  I  was  convinced  that  the  public  had  already  be 
come  reasonably  instructed  as  to  them. 

John  Q.  Adams  is  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  men 
of  his  day.  Standing  aloof  from  parties,  completely 
self-reliant,  opulently  endowed  with  every  high  power 
of  moderation,  insight,  and  effective  presentation,  his 
good  genius  gave  him  the  championship  in  congress 
of  the  free-labor  cause  during  the  critical  years  that  it 
was  preparing  for  the  decisive  meeting  with  the  slave- 
labor  cause.  In  this  time  it  seems  to  me  that  single- 
handed  he  achieved  more  for  the  latter  than  all  its  other 
champions.  A  pleasant  parallel  between  him  and  Lee 
occurs  to  me.  Each  had  filled  the  proudest  place  in  the 
chosen  avocation  of  his  life.  Adams  had  been  the  chief 
magistrate  of  the  great  republic,  elected  by  the  votes  of 
a  continent.  Lee  had  been  the  foremost  general  of  the 
bravest  and  most  puissant  nation  that  ever  lost  its  exist 
ence  by  war.  Each  one  of  the  two  passed  from  power 
down  into  what  is  usually  a  condition  of  inaction  and 
accumulating  rust  till  the  end  of  life,  and  to  each  was 
most  kindly  granted  the  achievement  of  new  fame  and 
glory.  In  the  national  house  of  representatives,  Adams, 
during  the  last  twelve  years  of  his  life,  —  1836-48,  —  did 
the  great  deeds  which  we  have  just  lauded.  In  the  last 
years  of  his  life  Lee,  as  the  head  of  an  humble  institution 
of  learning,  showed  not  only  the  youth  in  his  charge, 
but  all  of  his  stricken  people,  how  to  conquer  direst 
adversity  with  such  grand  success  in  an  example  of 


Introductory  21 

unmurmuring  endurance  that  every  future  generation 
of  men  will  give  it  more  loving  appreciation. 

John  Q.  Adams,  as  I  have  tried  to  explain,  is  almost 
an  American  epoch  of  himself;  but  I  could  not  give  him 
the  chapter  that  is  his  due. 

I  felt  that  it  would  have  been  well  to  pair  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  of  the  north  with  Alexander  H.  Stephens  of  the 
south.  They  are  in  nearly  exact  antithetical  contrast. 
The  former  clung  to  the  south,  the  other  to  the  union, 
until  the  clock  struck  the  dread  hour  of  separation. 
How  they  loved  each  other  and  each  other's  people  ! 
They  most  strikingly  exemplify  the  adamantine  grip 
which  each  one  of  the  two  nationalizations  kept  upon 
its  greatest  and  best. 

Wendell  Phillips  and  William  L.  Yancey  should  be 
contrasted.  Each  one  was  the  very  prince  of  sectional 
agitators,  helping  with  great  efficiency  to  make  the 
public  opinion  that  carried  forward  Seward  and  Lin 
coln,  the  actual  leaders  of  the  north,  and  Toombs,  the 
actual  leader  of  the  south.  It  is  my  strong  conviction 
that  Phillips  and  Yancey  were  the  most  gifted,  eloquent, 
and  influential  stump  speakers  in  America  since  Patrick 
Henry. 

Chase  steadily  rises  in  my  estimate.  His  solid  parts, 
his  consistent,  conscientious,  and  able  anti-slavery  career, 
and  especially  that  decisive  speech  in  the  Peace  Congress, 
—  these,  and  other  relevancies  that  can  be  mentioned, 
drew  me  powerfully.  The  firm  candor  with  which  he 
avowed  in  that  memorable  speech  that  the  north  had 
decided  against  the  expansion  of  slavery,  demonstrates 
the  clearness  of  his  vision.  The  part  of  it  which  recurs 
to  me  most  frequently  is  that  in  which  he  impressively 
recounts  the  intersectional  dissension  over  the  fugitive 
slave  law,  —  the  south  believing  slavery  right,  the  north 
believing  it  wrong,  —  and  proposes  that  in  place  of  the 


22  The  Brothers'  War 

remedy  given  by  that  law  the  master  be  paid  the  value 
of  his  slave.  "  Instead  of  judgment  for  rendition,"  he 
said,  "  let  there  be  judgment  for  compensation  deter 
mined  by  the  true  value  of  the  services,  and  let  the  same 
judgment  assure  freedom  to  the  fugitive.  The  cost  to 
the  national  treasury  would  be  as  nothing  in  comparison 
with  the  evils  of  discord  and  strife.  All  parties  would 
be  gainers." 

Calhoun  devised  to  restrain  the  sections  from  mutual 
aggression  by  endowing  each  with  an  absolute  veto 
against  the  other.  Webster  fondly  believed  that  if  he 
could  be  president  he  would  bring  back  the  wrangling 
brothers  to  love  one  another  again  as  much  as  he  loved 
them  all.  Chase  also  had  his  pet  impracticable  project. 
Each  one  of  the  three  recoiled  and  racked  all  of  his 
invention  to  save  his  country  from  the  huge  fraternal 
slaughter  that  his  divining  soul  whispered  to  him  was 
near. 

The  south  will  cherish  the  memory  of  Chase  more 
and  more  fondly  as  she  learns  better  how  he  firmly 
stood  for  civil  law  against  military  rule,  and  that  he 
was  heart  and  soul  for  universal  amnesty. 

It  was  all  I  could  do  to  deny  a  chapter  to  William 
H.  Seward.  He  seems  to  me  to  have  been  the  only 
northern  man  whose  foresight  of  the  coming  convul 
sion  equalled  that  of  Calhoun.  He  did  not  become  a 
Jeremiah  as  the  other  did,  for  his  section  was  not,  after 
it  had  just  emerged  from  a  gulf  of  blood,  to  be  plunged 
and  held  for  years  in  a  gulf  of  poverty  and  disorder. 
He  was  far  less  serious  and  much  more  optimistic  in  his 
nature  than  Calhoun.  Affectionate,  sympathetic,  rarely 
agreeable  in  his  manners  —  how  well  Mrs.  Davis  depicts 
him  in  what  is  to  me  one  of  the  pleasantest  passages  of 
her  book.1  He  was  spoils  politician,  able  popular  leader, 

1  Memoir  of  Jefferson  Davis,  vol.  i.  579-583. 


Introductory  23 

and  great  statesman  in  rare  combination.  While  his 
heart  was  extremely  warm,  his  head  was  never  turned 
by  his  feelings.  Lincoln  ardently  believed  in  his  soul 
what  Choate  calls  "  the  glittering  generalities "  of  the 
declaration  of  independence.  But  to  Seward  current 
illusions  were  the  same  as  they  were  to  Napoleon  Bona 
parte —  he  was  to  lead  the  masses  with  them  just  as  far 
as  possible,  but  not  to  deceive  himself.  Read  in  your 
closet  his  two  epochal  speeches,  the  "  higher  law  "  one 
of  March  11,  1850,  and  that  proclaiming  the  irrepressible 
conflict  at  Rochester,  October  25,  1858,  then  read  that 
of  Chase  at  the  Peace  Congress,  and  you  cannot  avoid 
feeling  that  while  Chase  opposes  slavery  mainly  be 
cause  he  conceives  it  to  be  a  gross  moral  wrong,  the 
other  opposes  because  it  is  the  belonging  of  an  inferior 
civilization.  In  my  opinion  no  man  of  that  time  had 
such  a  clear  conception  as  Seward  of  the  utter  econom 
ical  incompatibility  of  the  free-labor  system  and  the 
slave-labor  system,  and  of  the  doom  of  the  latter  in 
their  conflict  then  on.  While  he  had  this  superior  in 
sight  and  wisdom  it  was  the  better  way  for  him  to  follow 
the  tide  of  morbid  moral  sentiment  and  unreasoning 
zeal  carrying  the  country  on  to  his  goal.  Following 
thus  he  proved  a  leader  unsurpassed.  The  longer  I 
contemplate  Seward  the  stronger  becomes  my  convic 
tion  that  he  is  the  most  entertaining  subject  and  the 
most  delightful  in  variety  of  parts  and  traits  of  all 
American  statesmen  for  the  essayist  portrait  painter. 
To  give  a  picture  true  to  life  demands  the  very  best  and 
highest  art. 

In  my  last  two  chapters  I  do  all  I  can  to  clear  up  the 
race  question,  which  is  now  densely  beclouded  with 
northern  misunderstanding  and  southern  prejudice.  The 
negro  has  a  nature  that  in  some  material  particulars  dif 
fers  so  widely  from  that  of  the  Caucasian  that  it  ought 


24  The  Brothers'  War 

to  be  duly  allowed  for;  and  yet  as  people  are  so  prone 
to  think  all  others  just  like  themselves,  this  is  hardly  ever 
done.  Now,  forty  years  after  emancipation,  we  see  that 
the  promptings  and  consequences  of  his  nature  just 
emphasized  in  combination  with  the  social  forces  oper 
ating  upon  him  have  caused  changes  in  the  situation,  of 
the  gravest  import  to  him.  His  native  idleness,  coming 
back  stronger  and  stronger  the  further  he  gets  in  time 
from  the  steady  work  of  slavery,  his  lack  of  forecast,  his 
vice,  inveterate  pauperism,  increasing  disease  and  in 
sanity,  on  one  side ;  the  hostility  excited  against  him  by 
the  inexpressibly  unwise  grant  to  him  of  equal  political 
rights,  and  the  rapid  invasion  by  white  labor  since  the 
early  nineties  of  the  province  which  he  appropriated 
during  the  years  when  the  whites  had  not  recovered 
from  the  paralyzing  shock  and  surprise  of  emancipa 
tion,  on  the  other  side,  example  these  changes.  There 
has  evolved  a  division  of  the  southern  negroes  into  two 
classes.  One  class,  which  I  most  roughly  distinguish 
as  the  upper,  contains  all  those  who  are  not  compelled 
by  their  circumstances  to  be  unskilled  laborers  in  country 
and  town.  It  hardly  amounts  to  one-twentieth  of  the 
whole.  The  millions  are  all  in  the  other  class,  which  I 
again  most  roughly  distinguish  as  the  lower.  Ponder 
what  I  tell  you  of  them,  their  helplessness,  their  accel 
erating  degradation,  their  mounting  death  rate,  their 
gloomy  prospects.  I  try  hard  also  to  have  the  upper 
class  well  understood.  To  a  southerner  it  is  amazing 
how  many  outside  people  of  education,  intelligence,  and 
fair-mindedness  assume  that  the  multitude  in  the  lower 
class  are  the  same  in  every  material  detail  of  character 
and  ability  as  those  few  who  by  various  favors  of  fortune 
have  found  place  in  the  upper  class.  To  stress  here,  in 
the  beginning,  a  fact  as  its  very  great  importance  de 
mands,  nearly  all  the  negroes  who  get  high  station  are 


Introductory  25 

part  white.  Dumas,  the  father,  was  at  least  half  white. 
The  son  Dumas  was  probably  three-quarters  white. 
Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  the  Anglo-African  composer, 
is  half  white.  Such  as  these  are  the  samples  by  which 
nearly  all  the  continent  and  England,  and  many  north 
erners,  estimate  the  capacity  of  the  pure  negroes  of  the 
south,  grovelling  in  depths  out  of  which  one  climbs 
only  now  and  then  by  a  miracle.  The  men  just  men 
tioned  are  not  real  negroes.  It  is  the  same  with  nearly 
all  the  so-called  negroes  of  America,  from  Douglass  to 
Dr.  Washington,  who  have  become  famous.  They  are 
but  examples  of  what  whites  can  do  against  adversity. 
The  coal-black  equalling  these  in  achievement  would  be 
as  rare  among  his  fellows  as  Hans,  the  Berlin  thinker,  is 
among  horses.  This  palpable  distinction  between  men 
who  are  largely,  if  not  nearly  all,  Caucasian,  and  men 
who  are  purely  West  African  in  descent,  is  utterly  over 
looked  by  many  most  conscientious  and  earnest  ones 
of  the  north,  like  Mr.  Louis  F.  Post,  who  is  always  tell 
ing  us  of  the  south  what  the  negro  is  —  not,  and  how 
we  should  treat  him,  magisterially  reading  us  lessons  in 
ABC  democracy. 

There  will  be  fewer  and  fewer  part-white  negroes  in 
the  south  by  reason  of  the  steadily  increasing  hostility 
of  each  race  to  mixed  procreation.  This  upper  class 
has  long  shown  a  drift  northward.  Under  the  expul 
sion  of  many  of  its  members  from  certain  occupations 
by  white  competition,  lately  commenced  and  fast  in 
creasing,  this  drift  now  gathers  strength.  From  what  I 
see  every  day  it  seems  to  me  that  the  destiny  of  much 
the  greater  part  of  this  upper  class  is  disappearance 
partly  by  absorption  and  partly  by  euthanasy. 

It  is  the  millions  of  the  lower  class  that  should  be  our 
deepest  concern.  If  they  be  left  where  their  Utopian 
emancipators  and  enfranchises  have  placed  them,  it  is 


26  The  Brothers'  War 

almost  certain  that  nearly  the  whole  will  go  into  the 
jaws  of  destruction,  now  opening  wide  before  them  and 
sucking  them  in.  Such  a  result  of  the  three  amend 
ments  —  that  is,  to  have  annihilated  hosts  upon  hosts 
of  pure  negroes  in  order  to  make  just  a  few  part-whites 
all-white — would  be  a  fit  monument  to  the  statesman 
ship  of  the  maddest  visionaries  in  all  history.  We 
must  come  resolutely  and  lovingly  to  the  help  of  these 
wretched  creatures.  I  tell  you  at  large  how  it  is  our 
duty  to  give  the  black  man  his  own  State  in  our  union, 
and  supervise  him  in  it  even  better  than  we  are  now 
doing  for  the  Philippine. 

I  believe  that  the  foregoing,  re-enforced  by  a  glance 
over  the  chapter-titles,  will  give  a  reader  the  preconcep 
tion  which  he  ought  to  get  from  an  introduction  to  a 
book  which  he  is  about  to  begin.  In  dealing  with  the 
causes  and  some  of  the  more  important  consequences 
of  the  brothers'  war  my  method  is  rationale  rather  than 
narrative.  My  first  purpose  is  to  indicate  how  every 
thing  happened  according  to  laws  that  with  cosmic 
force  reared  two  great  economic  powers,  divided  the 
whole  land  into  a  vast  host  standing  up  for  one  of  the 
two  in  the  south,  and  a  still  larger  host  standing  up  for 
the  other  in  the  north,  and  how  these  same  laws  were 
most  faithfully  served  by  all  the  actors  on  each  side.  I 
try  to  set  out  and  explain  what  are  the  principles  of 
evolution  and  the  ways  of  human  action,  and  especially 
the  commanding  view-points,  which  must  be  rightly 
attended  to  in  their  supreme  importance  before  the 
greater  one  of  the  two  critical  American  eras  can  have 
its  fit  history.  The  man  who  writes  it  will  be  entirely 
free  from  the  monomania  and  orgiastic  fury  of  both 
fire-eater  and  root-and-branch  abolitionist,  from  their 
excessively  emotional  assumptions,  their  explosive  and 
exclamatory  argumentation;  he  will  have  the  industry, 


Introductory  27 

the  undisturbed  vision,  and  the  perfect  fairness  of  the 
foremost  sociologists  of  our  time;  he  will  show  how 
each  side  was  right  from  first  to  last  in  upholding  its 
own  separate  country,  —  all  belonging  to  it,  statesmen, 
agitators,  demagogues,  fanatical  fire-eaters  and  aboli 
tionists,  generals  and  soldiers.  He  will  show  that  such 
things  which  in  expedience  ought  not  to  have  been 
done  were  unavoidable,  and  therefore  to  be  excused. 
He  will  show  what  erroneous  judgments  of  each  section 
should  now  be  challenged  and  kept  from  working  in 
jury.  Especially  do  I  emphasize  it,  he  will  convince 
every  average  reader  that  north  and  south  were  equally 
conscientious,  honest,  heroic,  and  lovable  from  begin 
ning  to  end.  Such  a  history  will  be  even  greater  than 
that  by  which  Thucydides  realized  his  soaring  ambition 
to  give  the  world  an  everlasting  possession ;  and  it  will 
become  the  bible  of  America,  treasured  and  loved  alike 
by  the  people  both  north  and  south. 

This  bible  is  coming,  as  many  signs  show.  I  will 
illustrate  by  examples  from  three  northern  authors, 
given  not  exactly  in  the  order  of  time,  but  in  that  of 
their  approximation  to  full  attainment.  After  a  cir 
cumstantial  description  of  each  one  of  the  three  days' 
fighting  at  Gettysburg,  fair  and  impartial  in  the  ex 
treme,  Mr.  Vanderslice  eulogizes  both  sides,  without 
invidious  distinction,  for  "  their  fidelity  and  gallantry, 
their  fortitude  and  valor,"  and  because  there  was  noth 
ing  done  by  either  "  to  tarnish  their  record  as  soldiers," 
and  most  becomingly  emphasizes  the  "  martial  fame 
and  glory"  thereby  won  "  for  the  American  soldier." 
But  just  here  he  sounds  a  most  unpleasantly  discord 
ant  note  by  saying,  "  One  was  right  and  the  other 
wrong."  1  He  forgot  that  brothers  who  fight  as  those 
did  at  Gettysburg  are  all  right,  and  that  whenever 

1  Gettysburg,  164,  165. 


28  The  Brothers'  War 

one    falls  on  either  side  flights  of  angels  sing  him  to 
his  rest. 

In  June,  1902,  Mr.  Charles  F.  Adams,  making  an 
academic  address  at  Chicago,  startled  many  of  his  au 
ditors  with  this  outspoken  vindication  of  the  south : 

"  Legally  and  technically,  —  not  morally,  —  ...  and  wholly 
irrespective  of  humanitarian  considerations,  —  to  which  side 
did  the  weight  of  argument  incline  during  the  great  debate 
which  culminated  in  our  civil  war?  .  .  .  If  we  accept  the  judg 
ment  of  some  of  the  more  modern  students  and  investigators  of 
history,  —  either  wholly  unprejudiced  or  with  a  distinct  union 
bias,  —  it  would  seem  as  if  the  weight  of  argument  falls  into 
what  I  will  term  the  confederate  scale."  l 

Mr.  Adams,  having  made  further  inquiry  of  his  own, 
December  22  of  the  same  year,  announced  a  still  more 
advanced  conclusion.  He  had  said  at  Chicago  that  the 
confederate  scale  preponderated ;  but  now  his  vision 
having  become  more  certain  he  said  the  scales  hung 
even.2  Note  that  in  the  passage  just  quoted  from  him  I 
have  italicized  the  two  words  "  not  morally."  I  do  not 
understand  that  in  the  Charleston  speech  he  meant  to 
revoke  the  italicized  words,  and  to  say  anything  more 
than  that  each  side  was  right  in  its  own  view  of  the  nature 
of  the  government.  Even  with  this  reservation,  the 
utterances  of  Mr.  Adams  evince  a  grateful  improvement 
upon  the  dogmatism  which  characterizes  nearly  every 
other  northerner  or  southerner  who  has  treated  the 
subject. 

Professor  Wendell  sees  clearly  that  both  sides  were 
morally  right,  and  he  is  impartially  just  and  equally 
loving  to  both.  I  feel  that  the  quotations  from  a  late 
work  of  his  which  I  now  make  are  the  chief  merits  of 

1  Quoted  by  himself  in  his  Charleston  speech,  mentioned  later  on. 

2  Speech  at  the  banquet  of  the  New  England  Society  of  Charleston, 
S.  C. 


Introductory  29 

this  chapter.  Considering  the  controversy  between  the 
sections,  he  says,  with  the  truest  insight,  "The  consti 
tution  of  the  United  States  was  presenting  itself  more 
and  more  in  the  light  of  an  agreement  between  two  in 
compatible  sets  of  economic  institutions,  assuming  to 
each  the  right  freely  to  exist  within  its  own  limits."  1 

In  this  next  passage  as  to  the  same  subject,  rising 
above  Mr.  Adams  to  the  high  frankness  which  the  facts 
demand,  he  says,  "  The  truth  is  that  an  irrepressible 
social  conflict  was  at  hand,  and  that  both  sides  were  as 
honorable  as  were  both  sides  during  the  American  Rev 
olution,  or  during  the  civil  wars  of  England."  2 

How  just  to  north  and  south  each,  and  how  frater 
nally  compassionate  towards  the  south  is  this:  "  Solemn 
enough  to  the  uninvaded  north,  the  war  meant  more 
than  northern  imagination  has  yet  realized  to  those 
southern  States  into  whose  heart  its  horrors  were 
slowly,  surely  carried.  Such  a  time  was  too  intense 
for  much  expression  ;  it  was  a  moment  rather  for  heroic 
action ;  and  in  south  and  north  alike  it  found  armies  of 
heroes.  Of  these  there  are  few  more  stirring  records 
than  a  simple  ballad  made  by  Dr.  Ticknor,  of  Georgia, 
concerning  a  confederate  soldier."  3  And  then  he  quotes 
"  Little  Giffen  "  in  full. 

Professor  Wendell  reaches  a  still  greater  height  when 
he  decorates  the  Tyrtaeus  of  the  Confederate  States  and 
the  supereminent  anti-slavery  lyricist  of  the  north  with 
equal  homage  and  admiration.  He  says: 

"  The  civil  war  brought  forth  no  lines  more  fervent  [than  the 
concluding  thirty-six  of  Timrod's  '  The  Cotton  Boll,'  which  are 
set  out],  and  few  whose  fervor  rises  to  such  lyric  height.  In 
the  days  of  conflict,  north  regarded  south,  and  south  north,  as 
the  incarnation  of  evil.  Time,  however,  has  begun  its  healing 

1  A  Literary  History  of  America,  345. 

2  Id.  346.    '  8  Id.  489. 


30  The  Brothers'  War 

work  ;  at  last  our  country  begins  to  understand  itself  better  than 
ever  before ;  and  as  our  new  patriotism  strengthens,  we  cannot 
prize  too  highly  such  verses  as  Whittier's,  honestly  phrasing 
noble  northern  sentiment,  or  as  Timrod's,  who  with  equal 
honesty  phrased  the  noble  sentiment  of  the  south.  A  litera 
ture  which  in  the  same  years  could  produce  work  so  utterly 
antagonistic  in  superficial  sentiment,  and  yet  so  harmonious  in 
their  common  sincerity  and  loftiness  of  feeling,  is  a  literature 
from  which  riches  may  come."  A 

These  words  are  more  golden  than  I  can  tell.  They 
parallel  the  elevation  of  Webster,  showing  the  same  love 
for  South  Carolina  and  Massachusetts,  in  the  pertinent 
parts  of  the  reply  to  Hayne,  which  since  my  boyhood 
I  have  cherished  as  a  nonpareil.  It  is  cheering  to  a 
faithful  southerner  to  receive  such  sure  proof  that  the 
day  must  soon  come  when  all  obloquy  will  be  lifted  from 
the  fame  of  Calhoun,  Toombs,  and  Davis.  What  a 
grand  triumph  of  contrast,  almost  surpassing  the  best 
achievement  of  Shakspeare,  it  will  be  when  some 
honest  Griffith,  having  shown  Webster,  Lincoln,  and 
Grant  in  all  the  worth  which  merited  their  unspeakably 
happy  lot,  each  radiant  with  the  victor's  glory,  places 
opposite  the  great  civic  heroes  of  the  southern  nation, 
their  due  renown  at  last  fitly  blazoned.  That  renown 
will  be  that  they  devoted  the  very  greatest  human 
powers  and  virtues  all  their  lives,  with  never  remitted 
effort  and  spotless  fidelity,  to  save  a  doomed  country,  — 
the  imperishable  renown  of  grand  failure  in  a  cause 
which  adverse  fate  cannot  keep  from  being  ever  dear  to 
all  humanity. 

My  last  word  as  to  what  I  have  just  quoted  from  the 
three  northern  authors  is  that  all  of  us  —  and  especially 
the  fast  widening  public  of  readers  —  ought  to  be  for 
ever  in  earnest  to  applaud  such  sentiments  and  chide 

1  A  Literary  History  of  America,  494,  495. 


Introductory  3 1 

every  manifestation  of  excessive  sectional  bias  or  preju 
dice  from  either  northerner  or  southerner.  This  has 
been  my  incessantly  kept  faith  for  years.  As  proof  I 
refer  to  my  article,  "  The  Old  and  New  South,"  nearly 
all  of  it  written  in  the  early  part  of  1875  —  thirty  years 
ago  —  and  which  I  published  the  next  year.  I  give  an 
exact  copy  of  it  in  the  Appendix.  As  you  go  through 
it  remember  these  things  of  the  author :  The  election  of 
Lincoln  made  me  believe,  as  it  did  thousands  of  other 
southerners,  that  secession  was  the  only  patriotic  course. 
I  therefore  voted  for  secession  delegates  to  the  State 
convention.  I  served  in  the  confederate  army  all  the 
war,  taking  part  in  the  First  Manassas  and  many  other 
battles ;  and  when  I  had  been  surrendered  and  paroled 
at  Appomattox  I  walked  back  to  my  home  in  Georgia. 
Ten  years  after  this  I  had'  found  full  solace  and  comfort 
for  the  direful  event  to  the  south  of  the  brothers'  war ; 
and  I  had  learned  that  the  brothers  on  each  side  had 
complete  justification  in  conscience  for  their  contrary 
parts  as  statesmen,  public  leaders,  voters,  and  at  the 
end  as  soldiers.  I  want  my  readers  of  each  section  to 
see  that  I  have  long  practised  what  I  am  now  preaching. 
I  beg  attention  to  the  article  on  another  score.  It 
shows  that  the  opinions  expressed  in  this  book  have  not 
been  formed  in  haste.  Nearly  all  of  the  more  impor 
tant  will  be  found  therein,  in  embryo,  at  least;  and  the 
present  book  will  show,  I  hope,  that  they  have  prosper 
ously  grown.  There  are  passages  in  the  article,  such  as 
those  touching  the  relations  of  the  races,  the  future  of 
the  negro,  the  maintenance  by  the  decentralizing  forces 
of  the  union  of  their  balance  with  the  counter  ones,  and 
also  others,  which  I  might  now  justly  claim  to  have 
proved  prophetic ;  and  I  do  not  believe  that  a  serious 
misprediction  can  be  found  in  the  entire  article.  This  is, 
I  hope,  such  corroboration  by  after  occurrences  as  indi- 


32  The  Brothers'  War 

cates  that  even  my  early  studies  of  the  transcendently 
important  theme  were  not  unfruitful. 

Further,  the  article  serves  in  some  sort  to  mark  a 
definite  stage  in  evolution.  To  give  but  one  illustra 
tion :  Although  my  close  attention  to  planting  interests 
at  the  time  and  for  the  seven  or  eight  preceding  years 
had  kept  me  closely  watching  the  negro,  I  had  not  then 
discovered  even  the  beginning  of  that  division  of  the 
race  into  two  classes  which  is  now  so  plain  to  me. 

Possibly  some  readers  may  shy  away  from  my  book, 
deeming  that  its  subject  is  hackneyed  and  worn  out. 
They  will  exclaim,  What  can  this  author  say  that  has 
not  been  said  in  the  vast  library  of  books  already  written 
upon  the  civil  war?  This  will  be  asked,  I  am  sure,  only 
by  the  unobservant  and  unreflecting.  If  one  but  turn 
away  from  the  assumptions,  dogmas,  and  philippics, 
with  which  north  and  south  cannonaded  each  other's 
morality  with  increasing  fury  from  1831  to  1861,  to  the 
rerum  causes,  the  play  of  resistless  social  forces,  and  the 
other  actualities  and  great  things  indicated  above,  their 
huge  stores  of  varied  novelty,  interest,  romance,  and 
wisdom  will  greatly  embarass  him  —  as  has  been  my 
painful  experience  —  both  in  making  the  best  selection 
and  in  his  felt  inability  to  give  what  he  does  at  last  se 
lect  its  fit  presentation. 

As  illustration  I  will  say  that  every  thoroughly  im 
partial  northern  reader  who  meditates  what  I  narrate  as 
to  Toombs  will,  I  believe,  be  astonished  to  learn  that 
one  so  prodigally  gifted  with  supreme  virtue  and  su 
preme  genius,  and  who  was  of  unexampled  success  in 
doing  all  the  common  and  all  the  extraordinary  duties 
of  high  place,  has  become  worse  than  forgotten  in  al 
most  his  own  day ;  and  such  a  reader  will  suspect,  as  I 
do  myself,  that  there  is  much  more  of  value  in  his  career 
that  I  have  overlooked. 


Introductory  33 

Perhaps  this  chapter  is  too  long  already.  But  I  pray 
my  reader  to  allow  me  to  say  a  little  more.  We  are 
upon  the  threshold  of  a  new  American  era.  Evidently 
because  of  our  western  coast  we  are  to  dominate  the 
Pacific  ocean  commerce  and  to  develop  it  into  propor 
tions  so  enormous  as  to  be  now  almost  inconceivable. 
That  coast  will  soon  outstrip  the  Atlantic  in  population 
and  great  cities.  Our  people,  safe  against  wars  on  the 
continent,  maintaining  armies  only  of  workers,  taught 
better  methods  every  year  by  practice  and  science, 
will  soon  be  far  in  advance  of  their  present  enviable 
prosperity  and  comfort.  Cheering  as  is  the  promise  of 
their  material  progress,  that  of  their  progress  in  virtue 
and  good  government  is  still  more  cheering.  Every 
where  in  the  north  —  which  was  not  impoverished,  de 
prived  of  familiar  modes  of  production,  and  paralyzed 
with  a  race  question  by  the  event  of  the  brothers'  war 
—  the  State  electorates  are  rebelling  successfully  against 
the  party  machine,  cashiering  the  boss,  and  subverting 
the  corporation  oligarchy.  That  in  the  last  election  the 
voters  most  intelligently  split  their  tickets  assures  the 
early  expulsion  of  spoilsmen,  grafters,  and  public-service 
franchise-grabbers  from  the  control  of  our  politics,  legis 
lation,  and  administration  of  government,  and  the  real 
and  permanent  elevation  of  the  people  to  being  their 
own  absolute  governors.  In  several  States  —  one  of 
these  a  southern  —  the  vote  was  for  the  most  democratic 
and  anti-plutocratic  president  since  Lincoln,  while  at  the 
same  time  the  anti-plutocratic  State  candidates,  either 
of  the  other  party  or  independent,  were  elected.  Our 
population  will  soon  outstrip  all  the  world  in  average 
riches,  comfort,  virtue,  and  education.  The  special  note 
to  be  made  of  this  new  American  era  now  beginning 
is  that  we  are  to  lead  the  nations  into  a  war-abolishing 
United  States  of  the  world,  which  in  the  end  will  make 

3 


34  The  Brothers*  War 

and  keep  them  our  equals  in  solid  welfare  and  happiness. 
With  this  prospect  in  view,  the  brighter  and  more  en 
rapturing  as  I  cannot  keep  from  contrasting  it  with  the 
black  and  hopeless  future  which  settled  around  me  at 
Appomattox,  I  would  do  all  that  I  can  to  bring  about 
that  better  understanding  between  north  and  south 
which  befits  the  good  time  near  at  hand. 


CHAPTER  II 

A  BEGINNING  MADE   WITH   SLAVERY 

A  a  distinguished  southerner,  familiar  with  the 
subject,  says,  slavery  in  the  United  States  was 
"  a  stupendous  anachronism."  1  It  is  almost  in 
credible  to  the  average  northerner  of  to-day  that  the 
enlightened  people  of  the  south  sank  backwards  in 
social  development  a  thousand  years  or  more,  and 
hugged  to  their  bosoms  for  several  generations  such  a 
monstrous  evil  and  peril. 

The  co-operation  of  two  facts  fully  explains  the  won 
der  just  noted.  Now  let  us  try  to  understand  this. 

The  first  fact  is  the  part  played  by  tobacco  and  cotton 
before  the  anti-slavery  sentiment  became  influential.  At 
a  time  when  there  was  practically  no  industry  but  agri 
culture  these  two  staples  became  the  most  lucrative  of 
all  common  American  crops.  Tobacco  found  its  true 
soil  in  Virginia,  and  cotton  farther  south.  It  developed 
in  time  that  both  could  be  made  far  more  profitably 
with  African  slaves  than  by  free  white  labor,  the  only 
other  labor  to  be  had.  Of  course  you  are  to  remember 
that  slave  cultivation  of  tobacco  did  not  become  general 
in  Virginia  until  near  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  cen 
tury,  and  that  it  was  the  invention  of  the  gin  soon  after 
the  adoption  of  the  federal  constitution  in  1789  that 
started  cotton  production  on  a  large  scale.  What  you 

1  Major  Joseph  B.  Gumming,  speaking  to  the  toast,  "  New  Ideas,  New 
Departures,  New  South,"  at  fourteenth  annual  dinner  of  New  England 
Society  of  Charleston,  S.  C.,  December  22,  1893. 


36  The  Brothers'  War 

are  especially  to  grasp  here  is  the  economic  conditions 
which  naturally  spread  slavery  from  its  beginning  at 
Jamestown,  first  over  Virginia,  and  then  throughout  the 
entire  south,  either  settled  in  large  measure  from  Vir 
ginia,  or  looking  thither  for  example.  The  Virginian 
who  could  not  replace  his  exhausted  fields  with  virgin 
soil  at  home  went  with  his  slaves  either  west  or  south, 
and  hacked  down  enough  of  the  primeval  forest  to 
give  his  working  force  its  quantum  of  arable  land.  We 
need  not  stop  here  to  tell  of  rice  and  cane,  nor  of 
other  crops  and  industries  which  for  a  while  engaged 
slave  labor  in  northern  regions  of  the  south  where  the 
soil  did  not  suit  tobacco.  The  foregoing  suggests  ad 
equately  for  this  place  how  slavery  became  general  in 
the  south. 

The  second  fact  is  that  the  prevalent  opinion  of  that 
time  was  far  different  from  that  of  to-day,  for  certain  rea 
sons,  to  which  I  would  now  have  you  attend. 

Long  before  the  discovery  of  America  personal 
slavery  had  fallen  under  the  ban  of  the  Christian  church 
and  become  in  Europe  a  thing  of  the  past.  The  Di 
vine  Comedy  catalogues  in  detail  the  religious,  political, 
moral,  and  social  events  of  its  age.  It  is  utterly  silent 
throughout  as  to  slavery.  Dante  died  in  1321,  soon 
after  he  had  finished  the  Divine  Comedy.  That  was 
nearly  three  hundred  years  before  the  appearance  of 
African  slavery  in  Virginia. 

Now  for  something  of  very  great  importance  to  us 
here,  which  occurred  soon  afterwards,  and  before  the 
introduction  of  African  slavery  into  America.  It  is  that 
by  the  Renascence  the  literature  of  slaveholding  Greece 
and  Rome  suddenly  acquired  and  long  held  command 
ing  influence  upon  almost  every  educator  of  the  public 
in  the  enlightened  world.  It  was  in  the  last  quarter  of 
the  fourteenth  century  —  some  fifty  years  after  Dante 


A  Beginning  made  with  Slavery         37 

had  died  —  that  the  classics  revived  in  Italy.  Spreading 
thence  over  Europe,  they  are  found  dominating  the  great 
Elizabethan  divines,  philosophers,  poets,  and  other  opin 
ion-forming  writers  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century. 
And  during  all  of  the  time  from  the  landing  of  the 
twenty  Africans  at  Jamestown  by  the  Dutch  man-of-war 
in  1619  until  slavery  had  become  the  solitary  prop  of 
southern  industry  and  property,  the  Greek  and  Latin 
ancient  writers  were  in  our  mother  country  almost  the 
sole  subjects  of  school  or  university  education,  and  the 
main  reading  of  all  those  that  read  at  all.  And  every 
page  of  this  literature,  studied  with  enthusiastic  worship 
and  resorted  to  day  in  and  day  out  for  instruction  and 
inspiration,  disclosed  that  in  Greece  and  Rome  the  aver 
age  family  was  dependent  for  its  maintenance  upon 
slaves  ;  and  that  so  far  from  slavery  being  a  relic  of  bar 
barism,  as  the  American  root-and-branch  abolitionists 
afterwards  fulminated  in  a  platform,  it  was  the  very 
foundation  of  the  state  in  those  two  great  nations  whose 
philosophy,  learning,  science,  jurisprudence,  poetry,  art, 
and  eloquence  are  still  the  models  in  every  enlightened 
land.  Naturally  the  educated  classes,  now  that  it  had 
been  several  hundred  years  since  slavery  was  a  burning 
question,  had  forgotten  or  had  never  heard  of  the  old 
disinclination  of  the  church,  and  could  not  see  any  evil 
in  that  which  their  most  admired  and  dearest  ones  had 
all  practised.  The  classics  did  not  stop  with  giving 
slavery  the  negative  support  just  mentioned.  Although 
such  authors  as  Quintilian  and  Seneca,  and  the  later 
jurists  —  all  of  the  discredited  silver,  and  not  of  the 
glorified  Ciceronian  and  Augustan  ages  —  do  express, 
theatrically  and  academically,  anti-slavery  opinions, 
yet  what  they  say  was  merely  dust  in  the  balance  when 
weighed  against  the  commendations  of  the  institution  to 
be  found  in  the  writings  of  Aristotle,  Plato,  and  Cicero, 


38  The  Brothers'  War 

who  had  now  become  the  great  idols  of  intellectual 
society.1 

The  church  would  not  stay  out  in  the  cold  and  dark, 
whither  it  had  been  suddenly  and  rudely  cast  by  the 
Renascence.  It  woke  up  to  discover  that  as  the  African 
was  a  heathen  barbarian  it  was  God's  mercy  to  kidnap 
him  for  a  Christian  master,  and  thus  give  him  his  only 
opportunity  of  saving  his  soul.  And  although  it  is  not 
right  to  enslave  other  races,  the  descendants  of  Ham  are 
an  exception,  who  by  reason  of  Noah's  curse  are  to 
be  the  servants  of  servants  to  the  end  of  time  —  that  is 
what  Holy  Church  taught  by  precept  and  example. 

"  Sir  John  Hawkins  has  the  unenviable  distinction 
of  being  the  first  English  captain  of  a  slave-ship, 
about  the  year  I552."2  His  venture  proved  a  great 
success.  Good  Queen  Bess  reproached  him  for  his 
mistreatment  of  human  beings.  He  answered  that  it 
was  far  better  for  the  African  thus  to  become  a  slave 
in  a  Christian  community,  than  to  live  the  rest  of 
his  life  in  his  native  home  of  idolatry;  and  this  was 
so  convincing  that  "  in  the  subsequent  expeditions 
of  this  most  heartless  man-stealer,  she  was  a  partner 
and  protector."3  Until  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century  the  masses  regarded  the  negro  as  being  rather 
wild  beast  than  man,  showing  no  more  scruples  in 
catching  and  making  a  drudge  of  him  than  later 
generations  did  in  lassoing  wild  horses  and  working 
them  under  curb-bit,  spur,  and  whip.  And  the  more 
understanding  ones,  who  recognized  that  the  negro  be- 

1  See  Cobb,  Slavery,  xcvii,  xcviii,  for  relevant  citations.     Chaps.  V. 
and  VI.  of  the  Historical  Sketch,  the  former  entitled  "  Slavery  in  Greece," 
and    the    latter,   "  Slavery   among   the    Romans "    (pp.   lix-xcviii),   are 
very  readable,   learned,  and  adequate  treatments  of  their  respective 
subjects. 

2  Cobb,  Slavery,  cxii. 

8   Id. 


A  Beginning  made  with  Slavery          39 

longed  to  humanity,  re-enforced  Aristotle1  and  Pliny2 
with  much  that  they  found  both  in  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments.3  The  many  who  preached  liberty  or  the 
true  religion  posed  as  humanitarians,  pharisaically  com 
paring  themselves  with  the  best  characters  of  Greece 
and  Rome.  The  citizens  of  those  great  republics,  they 
said,  in  spite  of  their  advanced  democracy,  tore  men 
and  women  of  their  own  race  and  blood  away  from 
home  and  country  and  forced  them  with  the  scourge  to 
toil  in  chains,  while  we  do  that  only  with  savages  and 
heathens,  who  cannot  be  civilized  or  christianized  in  any 
other  way.  We  eschew  slavery  in  the  abstract.  We 
tolerate  it  only  in  the  concrete,  which  is  the  slavery  of 
those  destined  for  it  by  God  and  nature.  Slave-catcher, 
slaveholder,  and  the  public  seriously  and  conscientiously 
held  this  creed. 

You  must  now  add  to  the  list  of  influences  planting 
and  stimulating  slavery  in  America  the  protection  it  got 
in  the  constitution  under  which  the  federal  government 
started  in  1789.  As  Mr.  Elaine  says: 

"  The  compromises  on  the  slavery  question,  inserted  in  the 
constitution,  were  among  the  essential  conditions  upon  which 
the  federal  government  was  organized.  If  the  African  slave- 
trade  had  not  been  permitted  to  continue  for  twenty  years,  if  it 
had  not  been  conceded  that  three-fifths  of  the  slaves  should  be 
counted  in  the  apportionment  of  representatives  in  congress,  if 
it  had  not  been  agreed  that  fugitives  from  service  should  be 
returned  to  their  owners,  the  thirteen  States  would  not  have 
been  able  in  1787  'to  form  a  more  perfect  union.'"4 

1  Aristotle   maintained  the   justice  of  wars  undertaken   to  procure 
slaves.     See  Cobb,  Slavery,  xii,  foot-note  3,  for  references. 

2  "  Pliny  compares  them  to  the  drones  among  the  bees,  to  be  forced 
to  labor,  even  as  the  drones  are  compelled."     Id.  xcviii. 

3  In  his  chapter  entitled  "  Slavery  among  the  Jews  "  Mr.  Cobb  cites 
most  of  the  important  passages.     Id.  xxxviii  sq. 

*  Twenty  Years  in  Congress,  vol.  i.  i. 


40  The  Brothers'  War 

Think  over  it  until  you  can  fully  take  in  the  prodigious 
favor  to  slavery  which  this  countenance  of  it  by  the 
American  bible  of  bibles  naturally  created  in  the  north 
and  south. 

The  forces  rapidly  sketched  in  the  foregoing  were  so 
powerful  in  their  co-operation  to  bring  in  slavery  that 
its  establishment  and  a  long  era  of  vigorous  growth  were 
inevitable.  Note  the  years  during  which  they  met  no 
sensible  or  only  a  fitful  opposition.  The  first  anti-slavery 
agitation  that  shook  the  entire  country  was  that  over 
the  Missouri  question,  which  having  lasted  a  little  more 
than  two  years  ended  in  1821,  thirty-two  years  after  the 
adoption  of  the  constitution.  This  agitation  was  only 
against  the  extension  of  slavery.  It  was  not  until  1835 
that  the  presentation  to  Congress  of  petitions  for  the 
abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  disclosed 
to  the  far-seeing  Calhoun  alone  that  serious  and  mighty 
aggression  upon  slavery  in  the  States  was  commencing. 
Here  we  may  date  the  beginning  of  the  abolition  move 
ment.  But  that  movement  did  not  become  respectable 
with  the  great  mass  of  northern  people  until  the  appli 
cation  of  California  in  1850  for  admission  into  the  union 
as  a  free  State  widened  the  chasm  between  the  sections 
so  that  it  commenced  to  show  to  the  dullest  eye,  and 
"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  which  came  out  in  1852, stirred  the 
north  to  its  depths.  The  growth  of  slavery  was  then  and 
had  been  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  complete.  The  soil, 
climate,  and  best  agricultural  interests  of  the  south,  at  a 
time  when  she  was  to  be  wholly  agricultural  or  economi 
cally  nothing  at  all,  the  practice  and  precepts  of  the  sages 
of  Greece  and  Rome,  of  the  patriarchs  of  Israel,  of  Jesus 
and  his  disciples  and  apostles,  of  the  great  and  good  of 
modern  times,  —  all  these  had,  with  oracular  consensus, 
led  her  understanding  and  conscience  into  adopting, 
nurturing,  and  on  into  extending  slavery  over  her  terri- 


A  Beginning  made  with  Slavery         41 

tory.  Thus  when  abolition  first  emerged  into  open  day, 
slavery  had  become  the  very  economical  life  of  the  south. 
It  had  so  permeated  and  informed  the  combined  prop 
erty,  social,  and  political  structure,  that  abolition  would 
subvert  the  community  fabric  and  beggar  the  popula 
tion  of  the  southern  States  now  living  in  content  and 
comfort. 

I  trust  that  the  foregoing  shows  you  that  it  is  not 
so  strange  after  all  that  slavery  ran  the  career  just 
described. 

But  some  one  says,  how  could  the  southerners  as 
Americans,  the  especial  champions  of  liberty,  stultify 
themselves  by  slaveholding  ?  how  could  they  forget  the 
world-arousing  words  of  the  declaration  of  independence 
that  all  men  are  created  equal,  and  endowed  with  unalien- 
able  rights  to  life,  liberty,  and  pursuit  of  happiness? 

This  has  already  been  answered.  The  slaveholding 
republics  of  Greece  and  Rome  had  advanced  in  democ 
racy  so  far  beyond  anything  to  be  found  in  Europe  at 
the  revival  of  learning,  that  from  that  time  on  for  many 
years  the  political  doctrine  in  the  recovered  classics  was 
the  very  greatest  of  all  the  intellectual  influences  that 
made  for  mere  democracy.  The  celebrated  passage 
in  which  Burke  eulogizes  the  stubborn  maintenance  of 
their  freedom  by  free  slaveholders  has  been  the  text  of 
speakers  from  Pinkney,  addressing  the  United  States 
senate  on  the  Missouri  question,  to  Toombs,  lecturing  in 
Tremont  Temple,  Boston,  and  it  has  never  been  confuted. 
History  shows  no  instance  where  such  men  ever  re 
proached  themselves  for  slaveholding,  and  while  it  was 
profitable  put  it  aside  because  it  is  undemocratic. 

As  to  the  words  which  you  quote  from  the  declara 
tion  of  independence,  Jefferson,  the  draftsman,  doubt 
less,  meant  them  to  include  the  African  ;  but  the  majority 
of  the  congress  making  it,  and  the  American  people 


42  The  Brothers'  War 

actually  ratifying  it,  almost  unanimously  held  that  the 
African  was  not  enough  of  man  to  come  within  the 
words. 

A  Roman  law  parallel  aptly  illustrates.  In  the  In 
stitutes  it  is  said  that  slavery  is  contrary  to  the  law  of 
nature,  for  under  this  every  one  is  born  free ;  1  and  again, 
that  slavery  was  established  by  the  jus  gentium  under 
which  a  man  is  made  subject  to  the  dominion  of  an 
other  contra  naturam,  that  is,  against  nature,  against/*/.? 
naturale,  or  the  law  of  nature.2  And  in  the  Pandects 
this  is  weakly  echoed.3  But  the  actual  enactment  of 
the  corpus  juris  civilis  fortifies  slavery  as  it  had  been 
established  all  over  the  world  by  the  jus  gentium  with 
these  plain  words :  "  The  master  has  power  of  life  and 
death  over  his  slave;  and  whatever  property  the  slave 
acquires,  he  acquires  for  the  master."  4 

Our  forefathers  making  the  declaration  of  independ 
ence,  and  the  Romans  of  Justinian's  time,  sentimental 
ized  in  the  same  words  over  the  natural  right  to  equality 

1    I,  2,  2.  2   Id.  I,  3,  1-2. 

3  Dig.  i,  i,  4,  where,  in  an  excerpt  from  Ulpian,  it  is  said  that  all 
human  beings  are/«r<?  naturali  (that  is,  by  the  law  of  nature)  born  free. 

We  of  to-day  must  not  regard  the  three  passages  just  cited  from  the 
Corpus  Juris  Civilis  as  particularly  reprehending  the  property  of  the 
master  in  his  slave.  Cicero  asserts  that  there  is  no  private  property 
whatever  according  to  the  law  of  nature ;  that  according  to  that  law  all 
things  are  common  property.  He  details  some  of  the  ways  by  which 
private  appropriation  is  made,  such  as  long  holding,  entry  into  vacant 
lands,  capture  in  war,  acquisition  by  contract,  etc.  According  to  this,  a 
prisoner  of  war  stood  on  the  same  footing  as  a  horse  captured  from  the 
enemy.  By  the  law  of  nature  there  could  be  private  property  in  neither. 
But  this  law  of  nature  was  really  repealed  by  the  jus  gentium,  under 
which  both  horse  and  prisoner  alike  became  private  property.  If  an 
other  took  either  the  horse  or  slave  away  from  the  owner,  he  would  — 
to  use  Cicero's  language  —  violate  the  law  of  human  society.  De  Officiis, 
Lib.  I.  cap.  7,  §§  20,  21. 

4  Inst.  i,  8,  i.     When  Mr.  Cobb  says  that  there  is  "  but  one  voice  in 
the  Digest  and  Code,"  book  cited,  xcviii,  meaning  that  they  give  no  coun 
tenance  to  slavery,  the  statement  is  misleading. 


A  Beginning  made  with  Slavery         43 

and  liberty  of  all  human  beings,  and  also  resolutely  held 
on  to  their  slaves.  The  solemn  assertion  that  all  men 
are  created  equal  and  of  inalienable  liberty  made  by 
American  slaveholders  was  but  a  repetition  of  what 
Roman  slaveholders  had  already  said ;  and  it  is  curious 
that  the  fact  has  not  attracted  due  attention. 

I  fancy  that  my  objector  now  shoots  his  last  bolt. 
He  exclaims  that  southerners  were  incredibly  dull  and 
obtuse  not  to  discern  that  resistlessly  puissant  eco 
nomical,  political,  moral,  and  intellectual  forces,  not  of 
America  only  but  of  the  entire  world,  were  leaguing 
together  against  slavery,  and  therefore  they  ought  to 
have  fled  in  time  from  the  coming  wrath  and  evil  day. 

A  satisfactory  reply  need  not  postulate  any  other  than 
ordinary  intelligence  and  alertness  for  the  south.  Note 
how  people  dwell  near  overflowing  rivers,  or  a  sea  of 
tidal  waves,  or  live  volcanoes,  or  in  earthquake  districts, 
or  near  a  tribe  of  scalping  redskins,  where  they,  their 
wives  and  children,  keep  merry  as  the  day  is  long  until 
calamity  comes.  The  warning  of  the  abolitionists  was 
too  late.  Suppose  we  had  given  the  inhabitants  of  Her- 
culaneum  or  Pompeii  or  St.  Pierre  timely  counsel  to 
abandon  their  homes  and  settle  beyond  the  reach  of 
eruption.  How  many  would  have  done  it?  I  knew 
hundreds  of  people,  and  among  all  of  them  there  was 
but  one  who  showed  by  his  actions  that  he  foresaw  the 
early  fall  of  slavery.  That  was  Mr.  Frank  L.  Upson  of 
Lexington,  Georgia,  a  highly  accomplished  and  well-in 
formed  man.  In  1856,  I  think  it  was,  he  sold  all  of  his 
slaves,  declaring  as  his  reason  that  he  believed  if  he 
kept  them  he  would  see  them  freed  without  compen 
sation.  He  was  so  serious  that  he  declared  this  even  to 
his  purchasers.  They  merely  laughed,  and  everybody 
else  laughed  too,  to  think  how  green  he  was  to  give 
them  the  good  bargain  that  he  did.  But  after  the  war 


44  The  Brothers'  War 

he  enjoyed  comfort  from  the  money  those  slaves  had 
brought  him,  when  all  his  neighbors  had  been  plunged 
into  hard  times  by  emancipation.  There  may  have  been 
others  that  did  like  him.  There  could  not  have  been 
many  such,  for  I  have  never  been  able  to  hear  of  a 
single  one. 

We  did  like  the  rest  of  mankind  do  or  would  have 
done.  We  stuck  to  our  homes  and  business  until  the 
tidal  wave  washed  them  away.  Yet  there  are  wise  ones 
who  are  positive  that  had  we  not  been  far  more  dull  and 
unforeseeing  than  the  average  we  would  have  under 
stood  many  years  before  the  final  convulsion  that  the 
forces  arrayed  against  slavery  were  irresistible,  and  sur 
rendered  it  in  time  to  get  compensated  emancipation. 
Look  at  the  monopolists  now  preying  upon  the  public 
in  every  corner  of  the  land.  They  are  confident  that 
their  holdings  are  impregnable  against  democracy  com 
ing  invincibly  against  them.  Look  at  the  great  mass  of 
our  population,  shutting  the  fresh  air  out  of  their  houses 
in  order  to  be  comfortably  warm,  and  thereby  rearing 
parents  —  especially  mothers  —  who  unawares  are  in 
cessantly  developing  tuberculosis  to  destroy  themselves 
and  their  children.  Some  years  hence  when  resumption 
by  government  of  its  functions  now  granted  to  private 
persons  has  dispossessed  all  the  monopolists,  and  when 
every  dwelling-house  is  kept  perfectly  ventilated  and 
free  from  infected  air,  there  will  be  other  wise  ones  to 
believe  that  hindsight  is  just  the  same  as  foresight,  and 
to  inveigh  against  the  monopolists  and  parents  just  men 
tioned  for  their  unwonted  stupidity  and  improvidence. 


CHAPTER   III 

UNAPPEASABLE  ANTAGONISM  OF  FREE  LABOR  AND 
SLAVE  LABOR,  AND  THEIR  MORTAL  COMBAT  OVER 
THE  PUBLIC  LANDS 

NOW  a  brief  explanation  of  the  antagonism  be 
tween  free  and  slave  labor.  The  expense  of 
his  slaves  to  the  farmer  is  the  same  whether 
they  are  resting  or  at  work.  Sundays,  days  and  even 
seasons  of  unfavorable  weather,  in  long  do-nothing  in 
tervals  succeeding  the  making  and  also  the  gathering  of 
the  crop,  they  cost  him  just  as  much  as  when  he  can 
work  them  from  sun  to  sun.  But  this  is  not  all  of  his 
load.  The  year  round  he  must  subsist  the  numerous 
non-workers  in  the  families  of  his  laborers,  whether 
young,  superannuated,  or  afflicted.  Suppose  another 
farmer  to  be  on  adjoining  land  who  can  employ  laborers 
just  as  he  wants  them,  and  discharge  them  as  soon  as 
he  has  no  further  use  for  them.  Do  you  not  perceive 
that  this  free-labor  farmer  can  produce  far  more  cheaply 
than  the  slave  farmer?  And  do  you  not  also  perceive 
that  if  there  is  a  supply  of  free  labor  to  be  had  in  a 
slave  country,  and  it  can  be  got  by  every  farmer  ad 
libitum,  slaves  must  lose  their  value  as  property  and 
be  driven  to  the  wall?  Free  labor  was  kept  out  of  the 
south  by  the  repugnance  of  the  white  laborer  to  the 
negro.  Note  also  that  when  the  number  of  slaves  had 
become  considerable  their  owners  would  naturally  com 
bine  to  protect  the  market  value  of  their  property  by 
preventing  the  coming  in  of  cheaper  labor.  This  was 
the  real  reason  why  Virginia  and  Delaware  opposed  the 


46  The  Brothers'  War 

extension  of  the  African  slave-trade  from  1800  to  1808, 
and  the  Confederate  States'  constitution  refused  to 
reopen  it.  Slavery  made  some  headway  in  the  north. 
But  not  finding  there  the  stimulus  of  such  products  as 
tobacco  and  cotton,  it  could  not  become  so  widespread 
and  deep-seated  as  to  sweep  out  free  labor.  The  latter 
under  favorable  conditions  commenced  the  competition 
in  which  it  could  not  fail  to  win ;  and  in  due  time  slavery 
died  out  in  the  north.  We  especially  desire  to  em 
phasize  the  attitude  towards  extension  of  slavery  that 
free  labor  was  bound  to  take.  That  it  had  already 
ejected  slavery  from  every  other  enlightened  commu 
nity  will  occur  to  the  reader  at  once  as  weighty  proof 
that  the  two  cannot  live  together.1  Think  of  the  free 
worker's  suffrage,  and  you  cannot  believe  that  he  could 
long  be  induced  to  vote  for  the  protection  and  further 
spread  of  a  system  taking  the  bread  out  of  his  own 
mouth,  and  degrading  him  by  engendering  profound 
disrespect  for  his  class ;  and  then  think  of  the  vast  and 
rapidly  growing  numbers  of  the  free  laborers  of  the 
north,  receiving  every  day  great  accessions  of  foreign 
immigrants  avoiding  the  south  as  they  would  the  plague ; 
think  of  all  these,  and  you  begin  to  discern  what  a 
mighty  power  was  rising  against  slavery. 

This  has  brought  us  to  the  place  where  we  can 
properly  treat  the  contention  for  the  Territories.  Con 
sider  their  vast  area.  Remember  that  our  people  have 
settled  thereon  in  such  numbers  that  thirty-two  new  States 
have  been  added  to  the  old  thirteen,  and  others  still  are 
to  be  added.  Here  for. some  generations  was  land  for 
the  landless ;  the  full  meaning  of  which  Henry  George 
has  made  us  plainly  see.  The  adventurous  and  enter- 

1  In  the  first  chapter  of  his  History  of  England  Macaulay  ascribes  this 
result  to  moral  causes,  and  to  religion  as  chief  agent.  He  is  only  one  of 
many  acute  historians  who  overlook  the  play  of  economical  forces. 


Antagonism  of  Free  and  Slave  Labor    47 

prising  of  the  old  States  of  each  section  set  their  faces 
thitherward  in  a  constantly  swelling  stream.  Attend  to 
the  only  material  difference  for  us  between  the  north 
erner  and  the  southerner  going  west.  Each  settler 
wanted  a  community  like  his  native  one.  The  north 
erner  had  not  been  trained  to  manage  slave  labor  and 
property;  he  did  not  like  it;  he  thought  it  out  of  date 
and  vastly  inferior  to  free  labor ;  and  he  could  not  en 
dure  to  have  himself  and  family  live  among  negroes, 
repulsive  to  him  because  of  unfamiliarity.  He  had 
learned  from  its  history  in  the  south  that  wherever 
slavery  established  itself  it  superseded  all  other  labor. 
Therefore  he  would  none  of  it  in  his  new  home;  and 
he  settled  in  a  non-slave  community.  Of  course  the 
southerner,  knowing  nothing  of  free  labor  and  bred  into 
a  love  of  the  slave  system,  settled  among  slaveholders. 
And  so  for  a  generation  or  two  free  and  slave  States 
were  steadily  added  to  the  union  in  pairs. 

But  the  unsettled  lands  were  diminishing  in  area. 
Its  population  multiplying  so  marvellously,  the  north 
felt  urgent  need  for  the  whole  of  these  lands.  The 
great  majority  of  settlers  going  thence  into  the  Territo 
ries  were  farmers.  Note  some  of  the  more  influential 
classes  left  behind  them.  The  parents,  relatives,  and 
friends  who  wanted  them  suited  in  the  west  —  this  was 
the  largest  class  of  all,  and  it  was  of  prodigious  intellec 
tual,  political,  and  moral  potency.  Then  the  manu 
facturers  of  agricultural  implements,  and  of  many 
articles,  all  of  which  the  southerners  either  had  their 
mechanic  slaves  to  make  by  hand,  and  of  oldtime 
fashion,  or  did  without;  the  millers,  and  many  sorts  of 
wholesale  merchants  who  had  found  slave  owners  poor 
and  the  employers  of  free  labor  good  customers;  and 
these  manufacturers  and  merchants  were  greedy  for  the 
new  markets  which  they  could  get  only  in  free  States. 


48  The  Brothers'  War 

These  are  but  the  merest  hints,  but  they  serve  some 
what  to  suggest  the  all-powerful  motives  which  at  last 
united  the  great  majority  of  northern  people,  east  and 
west,  in  intelligent  and  inveterate  opposition  to  the 
further  spread  of  slavery. 

Now  look  at  the  southern  situation.  At  the  outset, 
note  that  his  slaves  were  the  southerner's  only  laborers, 
and  practically  his  only  property.  And  note  especially 
that  this  property  was  not  only  self-supporting,  but  it 
was  also  the  most  rapidly  self-reproducing  that  Tom, 
Dick,  and  Harry  ever  had  in  all  history.  A  reliable 
witness  tells  this :  "  On  my  father's  plantation  an  aged 
negro  woman  could  call  together  more  than  one  hun 
dred  of  her  lineal  descendants.  I  saw  this  old  negro 
dance  at  the  wedding  of  her  great-granddaughter."  1 

Let  me  repeat  that  slaves  were  not  only  money- 
making  laborers,  but  also  things  of  valuable  property, 
which  of  themselves  multiplied  as  dollars  do  at  com 
pound  interest.  Let  the  northern  man  unfamiliar  with 
slavery  try  to  understand  this  one  of  its  phases  by  sup 
posing  that  he  has  orchards  abundantly  yielding  a  fruit 
which  is  in  good  demand,  and  that  the  trees  plant  and 
tend  themselves,  gather  and  store  the  fruit,  set  out  other 
orchards,  and  do  all  things  else  necessary  to  care  for 
the  property  and  keep  it  steadily  growing.  Such  trees 
with  their  yearly  produce  and  prodigious  increase  — 
each  by  an  easy  organic  or  natural,  and  not  by  a  diffi 
cult  artificial,  process,  relieving  the  owner  from  all  but 
the  slightest  attention  and  labor  of  superintendence  — 
would  soon  be  the  only  ones  in  their  entire  zone  of 
production ;  bringing  it  about  that  all  other  occupations 
and  property  therein  would  be  dependent  upon  this 
main  and  really  only  industry.  Such  orchards  would 
be  somewhat  like  the  slaves  in  their  automatic  produc- 

1  Cobb,  Slavery,  ccxviii  (foot-note). 


Antagonism  of  Free  and  Slave  Labor    49 

tion  and  accumulation,  but  they  would  be  much  inferior 
as  marketable  property  in  many  particulars. 

Although  the  profits  of  slave-planting  were  consider 
able,  the  greatest  profit  of  all  was  what  the  master 
thought  of  and  talked  of  all  the  day  long, — the  natural 
increase  of  his  slaves,  as  he  called  it.  His  negroes 
were  far  more  to  him  than  his  land.  His  planting  was 
the  furthest  removed  of  all  from  a  proper  restorative 
agriculture.  Quickly  exhausting  his  new  cleared  fields, 
he  looked  elsewhere  for  other  virgin  soil  to  wear  out 
The  number  of  the  slaves  in  the  south  was  growing  fast, 
and  the  new  lands  in  the  older  slave  States  were  nearly 
gone.  To  keep  the  hens  laying  the  golden  eggs  of  nat 
ural  increase,  nests  must  be  found  for  them  on  the  cot 
ton,  sugar,  and  rice  lands  of  the  Territories.  In  other 
words,  the  area  of  slave  culture  must  be  extended ;  for 
whenever  there  is  no  land  for  a  considerable  number  of 
our  workers,  it  is  evident  that  we  have  a  surplus  of 
slaves;  and  the  effect  of  that  will  be  at  the  first  to 
lower  the  market  value  of  our  only  property,  and  then 
gradually  to  destroy  it.  So  the  instincts  of  the  south 
erners  whispered  in  their  ears. 

We  hope  that  we  now  have  helped  you  to  an  under 
standing  of  the  active  principles  each  of  free  labor  and 
of  slave  labor ;  how  by  reason  of  them  the  interests  of 
north  and  south  in  dividing  the  public  domain  were  in 
irreconcilable  conflict;  and  how  it  was  natural  that  the 
free  States  should  band  together  against,  and  the  slave 
States  band  together  for,  slavery.  Thus  the  country 
split  into  two  geographical  though  not  political  sec 
tions,  the  political  division  which  ripened  later  being  as 
yet  only  imminent  and  inchoate.  That  these  sections 
had  been  made  by  deadly  war  between  free  labor  and 
slave  labor  is  all  that  we  have  to  say  here.  The  devel 
opment  went  further,  as  we  shall  explain  in  the  next 

4 


50  The  Brothers'  War 

chapter  —  all  of  it  under  the  propulsion  of  the  two  ac 
tive  principles.  They  were  always  the  ultimate  and 
supreme  motors.  Often  they  are  not  to  be  seen  at  all. 
Still  more  often  what  they  did  was  disguised.  To  read 
the  facts  of  that  time  aright  you  must  always  and  every 
where  look  for  their  work.  Do  that  patiently,  and  you 
will  detect  every  one  of  the  many  controversies  over 
matters  affecting  an  interest  of  either  section  as  such  — 
whether  questions  apparently  of  national  politics,  of 
morals,  or  religion,  in  newspapers,  pamphlets,  reviews, 
books,  and  all  the  vast  contemporary  literature,  in  the 
pulpit,  on  the  platform,  and  in  every  place  and  corner 
of  the  entire  land  where  policy  and  impolicy  or  right 
and  wrong  were  mooted  —  to  be  but  a  part  of  one  or 
the  other  of  two  great  complexes  of  machinery,  each 
geared  to  its  particular  motor  and  kept  going  by  its 
mighty  push. 


CHAPTER  IV 

GENESIS,  COURSE,  AND  GOAL  OF  SOUTHERN 
NATIONALIZATION 

NATIONALIZATION  is  the  process  by  which 
a  nation  makes  itself.  The  process  may  be 
active  for  a  long  while  without  completion,  as 
we  see  in  the  case  of  Ireland ;  it  may  form  a  nation,  but 
to  be  overturned  and  wiped  out,  as  the  southern  con 
federacy  was;  or  it  may  find  its  consummation  in  such 
a  powerful  one  as  the  United  States.  The  most  con 
spicuous  effect  of  the  process  we  now  have  in  hand  is 
to  make  one  of  many  communities.  But  sometimes  a 
part  breaks  off  from  a  nation  and  sets  up  and  maintains 
its  independence  as  a  country.  Thus  a  portion  of  the 
territory  of  Mexico  was  settled  over  from  our  States, 
and  after  a  while  these  settlers  tore  themselves  loose 
from  Mexico  and  became  the  nation  of  Texas.  We 
shall  tell  you  more  fully  in  another  chapter  how  the 
separate  colonies  became  nationalized  into  the  United 
States,  and  what  we  say  here  of  southern  nationalization 
will  illustrate  to  the  reader  that  important  transforma 
tion,  to  understand  which  is  of  especial  moment  to  us 
in  examining  the  brothers'  war.  But  we  must  empha 
size  the  characteristic  feature  of  the  nationalization  of 
the  south.  I  have  searched  the  pages  of  history  in 
vain  for  an  example  like  it.  The  idiosyncrasy  is  that 
the  south  was  homogeneous  in  origin,  race,  language, 
religion,  institutions,  and  customs  with  the  north,  and 
yet  she  developed  away  from  the  north  into  a  separate 


52  The  Brothers*  War 

nation.  I  have  long  been  accustomed  to  parallel  the 
case  of  Ireland's  repulsion  from  Great  Britain,  but  I  al 
ways  had  to  admit  that  there  was  dissimilarity  in  every 
thing  except  the  strong  drift  towards  independence  and 
the  struggle  to  win  it;  l  for  the  Irish  are  largely  differ 
ent  from  the  English  in  origin,  race,  language,  religion, 
institutions,  and  customs.  The  more  you  consider  it  the 
more  striking  becomes  this  uniqueness  of  southern  na 
tionalization.  Think  of  it  for  a  moment.  Thirteen 
adjacent  colonies;  each  a  dependency  of  the  same 
nation ;  all  settled  promiscuously  from  every  part  and 
parcel  of  one  mother  country,  and  therefore  the  settlers 
rapidly  becoming  in  time  more  like  one  another  every 
where  than  the  English  at  home  who  were  clinging 
to  their  several  localities  and  dialects ;  governed  alike ; 
standing  together  against  Indians,  French,  and  Spanish, 
and  after  a  while  against  the  mother  country;  — where 
can  you  find  another  instance  of  so  many  common  ties 
and  tendencies,  all  prompting  incessantly  and  mightily 
to  union  in  a  political  whole,  which  is  ever  the  goal 
of  the  nationalizing  process.  That  the  colonies  did 
grow  into  a  political  whole  is  not  at  all  wonderful  to 
the  historical  student.  The  wonder  is  that  after  they 
had  done  this  a  number  of  them  just  like  the  others  in 
the  particulars  above  pointed  out,  which  fuse  adjacent 
communities  into  a  nation,  turn  away  from  the  old 
union  and  seek  to  form  one  of  their  own.  The  south 
ern  States  all  did  the  same  thing  with  such  practical 
unanimity  that  even  the  foreigner  may  know  that  the 
same  cause  was  at  work  in  every  one  of  them.  Mani 
festly  there  was  a  nationalizing  element  in  them  which 
was  not  in  the  others,  and  which  made  the  former  ho- 

1  See  p.  437  infra,  where  I  have  compared  the  struggle  of  Ireland  for 
autonomy  during  the  last  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  with  that  of 
the  south  narrated  in  this  book. 


Southern  Nationalization  53 

mogeneous  with  one  another  and  heterogeneous  to  the 
rest.  And  that  element  which  differenced  the  south 
from  the  rest  of  the  union  so  greatly  that  it  was,  from  a 
time  long  before  either  she  or  the  north  had  become 
conscious  of  it,  impelling  her  irresistibly  towards  an  in 
dependent  nationality  of  her  own,  all  of  us  natives  know 
was  the  constructive  and  plastic  principle  of  her  slave 
industrial  and  property  system. 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  the  foregoing  expatiation  to 
prove  to  you  such  a  familiar  and  well-known  fact  as  that 
slavery  parted  north  and  south  and  caused  the  brothers' 
war.  Its  purpose  is  to  arouse  you  to  consider  nationali 
zation,  and  have  you  see  how  it  acts  according  to  a  will 
of  its  own  and  not  of  man,  and  now  and  then  works  out 
most  stupendous  results  contrary  to  all  that  mortals 
deem  probabilities.  You  ought  to  recognize  that  the 
forces  which  produced  the  Confederate  States  were  just 
as  all-powerful  and  opposeless  as  those  which  produced 
the  United  States ;  that  in  fact  they  were  exactly  the 
same  in  kind,  that  is,  the  forces  of  nationalization. 

To  have  you  see  that  even  at  the  time  of  making  the 
federal  constitution  the  south  had  grown  into  a  pro- 
slavery  section  and  was  far  on  the  road  towards  inde 
pendence,  it  is  necessary  to  correct  the  prevalent  opinion 
that  there  was  then  below  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  a 
very  widespread  and  influential  hostility  to  slavery.  The 
manumission  of  his  slaves  by  Washington,  the  fearless 
and  outspoken  opposition  to  the  institution  by  Jefferson 
and  some  other  prominent  persons,  and  certain  facts 
indicating  unfavorable  sentiment,  have  been  too  hastily 
accepted  by  even  historians  as  demonstrations  that  the 
opinion  is  true.  Here  are  the  facts  which  prove  it  to 
be  utterly  untrue.  In  1784,  three  years  before  our 
epochal  convention  assembled,  Jefferson,  as  chairman 
of  an  appropriate  committee  consisting  besides  himself 


54  The  Brothers'  War 

of  Chase  of  Maryland  and  Hovvell  of  Rhode  Island, 
reported  to  congress  a  plan  for  the  temporary  govern 
ment  of  the  West  Territory.  This  region  contained 
not  only  all  the  territory  that  was  subsequently  covered 
by  the  famous  ordinance  of  1787,  but  such  a  vast  deal 
more  that  it  was  proposed  to  make  seventeen  States  out 
of  the  whole.  Consider  this  provision  of  the  report,  the 
suggestion  and  work  of  Jefferson: 

"That  after  the  year  1800  of  the  Christian  era  there  shall  be 
neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude  in  any  of  said  States, 
otherwise  than  in  punishment  of  crimes  whereof  the  party  shall 
have  been  convicted  to  have  been  personally  guilty." 

When  the  report  was  taken  up  by  congress,  Spaight 
of  North  Carolina  made  a  motion  to  strike  out  the  pro 
vision  just  quoted,  and  it  was  seconded  by  Reed  of 
South  Carolina.  On  the  vote  North  Carolina  was 
divided ;  but  all  the  other  southern  States  represented, 
to  wit,  Maryland,  Virginia,  and  South  Carolina,  voted 
for  the  motion,  the  colleagues  of  Jefferson  of  Virginia 
and  those  of  Chase  of  Maryland  out-voting  these  two 
southerners  standing  by  the  provision.  All  the  northern 
States  represented,  which  were  the  then  four  New  Eng 
land  States,  New  York,  and  Pennsylvania,  voted  for  the 
provision.  But  as  it  failed  to  get  the  necessary  seven 
States  it  was  not  retained. 

Thus  it  appears  that  at  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary 
war  the  interest  of  the  south  in  and  her  attachment  to 
slavery  were  so  great  that  by  her  representatives  in 
congress  she  appears  to  be  almost  unanimous  against 
the  proposal  to  keep  the  institution  from  extending. 

This  action  of  the  south  shows  that  both  Virginia  in 
ceding  that  part  of  the  West  Territory  which  was  three 
years  afterwards  by  the  ordinance  of  1787  put  under 
Jefferson's  provision  which  had  been  rejected  when  it 


Southern  Nationalization  55 

had  been  proposed  for  all  the  territory,  and  the  south 
in  voting  unanimously  for  the  ordinance,  were  not  actu 
ated  by  hostility  to  slavery.  The  soil  of  the  territory 
north  of  the  Ohio  and  east  of  the  Mississippi  to  which 
the  ordinance  applied  probably  may  have  been  thought 
by  Virginians  unsuited  to  tobacco,  the  then  sole  crop 
upon  which  slave  labor  could  be  lucratively  used.  Be 
that  as  it  may,  that  the  southern  States  in  subsequent 
cessions  made  not  long  afterwards  guarded  against 
slavery  prohibition  must  be  kept  in  mind.  When  they 
are,  it  is  proved  that  always  from  the  time  that  Jeffer 
son's  provision  failed  to  carry  in  1784,  as  has  been  told 
above,  the  prevalent  sentiment  of  the  southern  people 
overwhelmingly  favored  slavery. 

Let  us  illustrate  from  later  times.  Writers  who  claim 
that  the  south,  meditating  secession,  purposed  to  reopen 
the  African  slave-trade,  adduce  some  relevant  evidence 
which  at  first  flush  appears  to  be  very  weighty,  if  not 
convincing.  They  show  that  A.  H.  Stephens  of  Georgia, 
who  afterwards  became  vice-president  of  the  Confede 
racy,  in  1859  used  language  indicating  that  he  thought 
it  vital  to  the  south,  in  her  struggle  to  extend  the  area 
of  slavery,  to  get  more  Africans;  and  they  further  show 
similar  utterances  made  at  the  time  by  certain  papers 
and  other  prominent  men  of  the  south. 

But  the  constitution  of  the  Confederate  States,  adopted 
in  1861,  contains  this  provision: 

"  The  importation  of  negroes  of  the  African  race  from  any 
foreign  country  other  than  the  slaveholding  States  or  Territories 
of  the  United  States  of  America  is  hereby  forbidden,  and  con 
gress  is  required  to  pass  such  laws  as  shall  effectually  prevent 
the  same." 

Of  course  this  solemn  act  unanimously  voted  for  by 
the  members  of  the  congress,  Stephens  being  one  of 
them,  counts  incalculably  more  in  weight  to  prove  that 


56  The  Brothers'  War 

predominant  southern  sentiment  was  against  reopening 
the  African  slave-trade,  than  the  counter  evidence  just 
stated.  Likewise  all  that  Washington,  Jefferson,  and 
other  of  their  contemporaries  may  have  done  or  said 
against  slavery  is  outweighed  by  the  contemporary  pro- 
slavery  legislation  and  measures  dictated  by  the  south. 
It  is  very  probable  that  during  the  time  we  are  now 
contemplating  anti-slavery  men  were  really  as  few  in  the 
south  as  union  men  were  after  the  first  blood  spilled  in 
the  brothers'  war. 

Recall  the  three  compromises  between  north  and 
south,  mentioned  above,  by  which  the  union  was  formed, 
and  you  will  understand  that  the  fathers  were  preaching 
but  to  stones  when  they  impugned  slavery.  And  at 
this  point  meditate  the  language  of  Madison  in  the 
historic  convention,  which  shows  that  he  saw  accurately 
even  then  the  permanence  of  slavery,  and  the  unequiv 
ocal  geographical  division  it  had  made.  He  was  dis 
cussing  the  apprehension  of  the  small  States,  New 
Jersey,  Delaware,  and  Rhode  Island,  that  under  the 
union  proposed  they  would  be  absorbed  by  the  larger 
adjacent  States.  He  affirmed  there  was  no  such  danger ; 
and  that  the  only  danger  arose  from  the  antagonism 
between  the  slave  and  the  non-slave  sections.  To  avert 
this  danger  he  proposed  to  arm  north  and  south  each 
with  defensive  power  against  the  other  by  conceding  to 
the  former  the  superiority  it  would  get  in  one  branch  of 
the  federal  legislature  by  reason  of  its  greater  population 
if  the  members  thereof  came  in  equal  numbers  from 
every  State,  large  or  small,  and  at  the  same  time  giving 
the  south  superiority  in  the  other  branch  by  allowing  it 
increased  representation  therein  for  all  its  slaves  counted 
as  free  inhabitants.  This  prepares  you  for  the  language 
which  we  now  give  from  the  report,  and  which  we  would 
have  you  meditate : 


Southern  Nationalization  57 

"  He  [Madison]  admitted  that  every  peculiar  interest,  whether 
in  any  class  of  citizens,  or  any  description  of  States,  ought  to  be 
secured  as  far  as  possible.  Wherever  there  is  danger  of  attack, 
there  ought  to  be  given  a  constitutional  power  of  defence.  But 
he  contended  that  the  States  were  divided  into  different  interests, 
not  by  their  difference  of  size,  but  by  other  circumstances ;  the 
most  material  of  which  resulted  partly  from  climate,  but  princi 
pally  from  the  effects  of  their  having  or  not  having  slaves.  These 
causes  concurred  in  forming  the  great  division  of  interests  in  the 
United  States.  It  did  not  lie  between  the  large  and  small 
States.  It  lay  between  the  northern  and  southern ;  and  if  any 
defensive  power  were  necessary,  it  ought  to  be  mutually  given 
to  these  two  interests.  He  was  so  strongly  impressed  with  this 
important  truth,  that  he  had  been  casting  about  in  his  mind  for 
some  expedient  that  would  answer  the  purpose.  The  one 
which  had  occurred  was  that,  instead  of  proportioning  the  votes 
of  the  States  in  both  branches  to  their  respective  number  of  in 
habitants,  computing  the  slaves  in  the  ratio  of  5  to  3,  they 
should  be  represented  in  one  branch  according  to  the  number 
of  free  inhabitants  only;  and  in  the  other  according  to  their 
whole  number,  counting  the  slaves  as  free.  By  this  arrange 
ment  the  southern  scale  would  have  the  advantage  in  one  house 
and  the  northern  in  the  other.'7 

Madison  meant  to  say  that  the  great  danger  of  dis 
union  was  that  —  we  emphasize  his  statement  by  re 
peating  and  italicizing  the  essential  part  —  "  the  States 
were  divided  into  different  interests  .  .  .  principally  from 
the  effects  of  their  having  or  not  having  slaves.  These 
causes  concurred  in  forming  the  great  division  of  interests 
in  the  United  States!' 

How  truly  he  expresses  the  economical  antagonism  of 
the  southern  and  northern  States,  although  he  hints 
nothing  of  the  nationalizing  tendency  of  the  former 
which  was  bound  in  time  to  show  itself  as  one  of  "  the 
effects  of  their  having  slaves." 

It  seems  to  me   that  Mr.  Adams  overeulogizes  the 


58  The  Brothers'  War 

political  instinct  and  prophecy  evinced  by  Madison  at 
this  time.  I  cannot  see  that  the  latter  does  anything 
more  than  merely  recognize  the  fact  then  plain  to  all. 
Note  as  proof  this  other  passage  quoted  by  Mr.  Adams 
from  Madison  in  the  convention,  in  which  the  material 
words  are  given  by  me  in  italics :  "  //  seems  now  well 
understood,  that  the  real  difference  of  interests  lies,  not 
between  the  large  and  small,  but  between  the  northern 
and  southern  States." 

If  the  historical  expert  but  duly  consider  the  impor 
tant  facts  marshalled  in  the  foregoing  he  must  find  them 
to  be  incontrovertible  proofs  that  in  1/87,  when  our 
fathers  were  making  the  federal  constitution,  and  for 
some  years  before,  southern  nationalization  was  not 
simply  inchoate,  but  that  it  was  growing  so  rapidly  its 
course  could  be  stopped  in  but  one  way;  that  is,  by 
the  extirpation  of  slavery,  which  was  both  its  germ  and 
active  principle.  This  was  before  the  invention  of  the 
gin.  After  that  the  lower  south  and  west  quickly  added 
a  vast  territory  to  the  empire  of  slavery,  and  southern 
nationalization  received  throughout  its  whole  domain  a 
new,  a  lasting,  and  a  far  more  powerful  impetus.  And 
when  the  cotton  States,  as  we  call  them,  had  really  de 
veloped  their  industry,  the  southern  confederacy  was 
inevitable. 

The  fact  of  this  nationalization  is  indisputable.  When 
the  confederates  organized  their  government  at  Mont 
gomery,  everybody  looking  on  felt  and  said  that  a  new 
nation  was  born.  Why  ignore  what  is  so  plain  and  so 
important?  Thus  Mr.  Adams  most  graphically  con 
trasts  the  two  widely  different  northern  and  southern 
civilizations  which  were  flourishing  side  by  side,1  and 
with  a  momentary  inadvertence  he  ascribes  national  de 
velopment  only  to  the  civilization  north  of  the  Potomac 
1  Charleston  Address  mentioned  above,  15. 


Southern  Nationalization  59 

and  Ohio,  and  treats  State  sovereignty  as  anti-national. 
The  fact  is  that  a  nationalization,  the  end  of  which  was 
southern  independence,  had  been  long  active,  as  we  have 
perhaps  too  copiously  shown,  and  the  doctrine  of  State 
sovereignty  was  really  nothing  but  its  instrument,  nurse, 
and  organ.  Every  southern  State  that  invoked  State 
sovereignty  and  seceded  was  shortly  afterwards  found  in 
the  new  southern  nation.  Had  that  nation  prospered, 
the  doctrine  would  soon  have  died  a  natural  death  even 
in  the  confederacy.  Nationalization  is  the  cardinal 
fact,  the  vis  major,  on  each  side.  The  free-labor  na 
tionalization  of  the  north,  purposing  to  appropriate  and 
hold  the  continent,  fashioned  a  self-preserving  weapon 
of  the  assumption  that  the  fathers  made  by  the  consti 
tution  an  indissoluble  union;  the  slave  nationalization 
of  the  south,  purposing  to  appropriate  and  hold  that 
part  of  the  continent  suiting  its  special  staples,  assumed 
that  the  fathers  preserved  State  sovereignty  intact  in  the 
federal  union. 

The  closer  you  look  the  plainer  you  will  see  that  the 
United  States  held  within  itself  two  nationalities  so  invete- 
rately  hostile  to  each  other  that  gemination  was  long 
imminent  before  it  actually  occurred.  The  hostility  be 
tween  the  statesmen  of  Virginia  and  her  daughter  States 
and  those  of  the  north,  and  especially  New  England,  — 
Jefferson  on  one  side  and  Hamilton  and  Adams  on  the 
other, — the  party  following  the  former  calling  itself  repub 
lican  and  that  following  the  latter  calling  itself  federalist, 
was  really  rooted  in  the  hostility  of  the  two  nationalities ; 
and  a  survival  of  this  hostility  is  now  unpleasantly  vigo 
rous  between  many  northern  and  southern  writers  and 
lecturers,  each  class  claiming  too  much  of  the  good  in 
our  past  history  for  its  own  section  and  ascribing  too 
much  of  the  bad  to  the  other.  As  a  lady  friend,  a 
native  of  Michigan  who  has  lived  in  the  south  some 


60  The  Brothers'  War 

years,  remarked  to  me  not  long  since,  as  soon  as  one 
going  north  crosses  the  Ohio  he  feels  that  he  has  entered 
another  country ;  behind  him  is  a  land  of  corn-pone,  bis 
cuit,  three  cooked  meals  a  day,  and  houses  tended  un 
tidily  by  darkey  servants  ;  before  him  is  a  land  of  bakers' 
bread  of  wheat,  where  there  is  hardly  more  than  one 
warm  meal  a  day,  and  the  houses  are  kept  as  neat  as  a 
pin  by  the  mothers  and  daughters  of  the  family.  Greater 
public  activity  of  the  county  while  there  is  hardly  any  at 
all  of  its  subdivisions,  the  representative  system  almost 
everywhere  in  the  municipalities,  no  government  by 
town-meeting  and  no  direct  legislation  except  occasion 
ally,  a  most  crude  and  feeble  rural  common  school  system, 
distinguish  and  characterize  the  south ;  buoyant  energy 
of  the  township  in  public  affairs,  government  by  town- 
meeting  instead  of  by  representatives,  a  common-school 
system  energetically  improving,  distinguish  and  charac 
terize  the  north.  The  manners  and  customs  of  southern 
ers  are  peculiar.  To  use  an  expressive  cant  word,  they 
"  gush "  more  than  northeners.  In  cars  and  public 
meetings  they  give  their  seats  to  ladies,  while  northerners 
do  not.  Southerners  are  quick  to  return  a  blow  for  in 
sulting  words,  and  in  the  consequent  rencounter  they 
are  prone  to  use  deadly  weapons;  while  northerners 
are  generally  as  averse  to  personal  violence  as  were  the 
Greeks  and  Romans  in  their  palmiest  time.  The  battle- 
cry  of  the  confederates  was  a  wild  cheering  —  a  fox-hunt 
yell,  as  we  called  it;  that  of  the  union  soldiers  was 
huzza  !  huzza  !  huzza  !  From  the  beginning  to  the  end, 
even  at  Franklin  and  Bentonville,  and  at  Farmville,  just 
two  days  before  I  was  surrendered  at  Appomattox,  the 
confederates  always,  if  possible,  took  the  offensive;  the 
union  soldiers  were  like  the  sturdy  Englishmen,  whose 
tactics  from  Hastings  to  Waterloo  have  generally  been 
defensive. 


Southern  Nationalization  61 

This  battle  yell,  this  impetuous  charge  after  charge 
until  the  field  is  won,  marks  the  fighting  of  the  Ameri 
cans  at  King's  Mountain  —  all  of  them  southerners; 
and  it  is  another  weighty  proof  of  the  early  coalescence 
of  the  south  as  a  community  on  its  way  to  independence. 

Many  other  contrasts  could  be  suggested.  Think 
over  the  foregoing.  They  are  the  respective  effects  of 
two  different  causes,  —  a  free-labor  nationalization  above, 
and  a  slave-labor  nationalization  below,  Mason  and 
Dixon's  line.  The  latter  —  its  origin  and  course  —  is 
the  especial  subject  of  this  chapter.  I  believe  that  the 
proofs  marshalled  above  demonstrate  to  the  fair  and  un 
prejudiced  reader  that  southern  nationalization  com 
menced  before  the  making  of  the  federal  constitution, 
and  afterwards  went  directly  on,  gathering  force  and 
power  all  the  while,  until  it  culminated  in 

"A  storm-cradled  nation  that  fell." 


CHAPTER  V 

AMERICAN  NATIONALIZATION,  AND  HOW  IT  MADE 
THE  BOND  OF  UNION  STRONGER  AND  STRONGER 

GREECE  was  going  down  in  her  contest  with 
Macedon  when  she  gave  the  world  to  come  the 
Achaean  league,  the  first  historical  example  of 
full-grown  federation.     As  Freeman  says  of  such  a  fed 
eral  government :  "  Its  perfect  form  is  a  late  growth  of 
a  very  high  state  of  political  culture."  1     This  historian 
thus  summarizes  its  essentials : 

"  Two  requisites  seem  necessary  to  constitute  federal  govern 
ment  in  this  its  most  perfect  form.  On  the  one  hand,  each  of 
the  members  of  the  union  must  be  wholly  independent  in  those 
matters  which  concern  each  member  only.  On  the  other  hand, 
all  must  be  subject  to  a  common  power  in  those  matters  which 
concern  the  whole  body  of  members  collectively."  2 

No  author  has  yet  shown  a  better-considered  and 
more  accurate  appreciation  of  the  benefits  to  different 
communities  of  federal  union.  But  the  islander  could 
not  conceive  —  even  at  the  centre  of  the  British  empire 
spread  over  the  world  —  the  advanced  phase  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  federation  in  America  and  Australia,  which  for 
want  of  a  better  name  we  may  call,  using  a  grand  word 
of  our  fathers,  continental  federation. 

And  Americans  of  every  generation  have  misunder 
stood  the  true  nature  of  our  union,  and  especially  how 
it  was  made  and  how  it  could  be  unmade.  The  fathers 

1  Hist,  of  Fed.  Gov.,  2d  ed.,  59.  2  Id.  2. 


American  Nationalization  63 

were  as  much  mistaken  as  to  the  real  authorship  of  the 
declaration  of  independence,  the  articles  of  confedera 
tion,  and  the  federal  constitution,  as  Burke  and  many 
people  of  his  time  were  as  to  the  true  causes  of  the 
French  revolution,  or  as  the  brothers  were  as  to  those 
of  their  war.  In  all  that  the  fathers  did  they  were  sure 
that  they  acted  as  agents  solely  of  their  respective  col 
onies  or  States,  which  they  believed  to  be  independent 
and  sovereign.  Therefore  they  maintained  that  the 
authorship  of  the  three  great  documents  just  mentioned 
was  that  of  the  separate  States,  when  in  truth  it  was  that 
of  the  union.  When  the  latter,  which  had  been  long 
forming  its  rudiments,  came  into  something  like  con 
sciousness,  it  at  once  spurred  our  fathers  to  make  the 
declaration  of  independence.  The  declaration  corre 
sponds  to  the  later  ordinances  of  secession.  And  this 
union,  gathering  strength,  led  our  fathers  to  make  the 
old  confederation;  and  its  articles  and  the  belonging 
government  are  closely  paralleled  by  the  constitution 
of  the  Confederate  States  and  its  belonging  govern 
ment.  As  southern  nationalization  brought  forth  the 
southern  confederacy,  so  it  was  American  nationaliza 
tion  that  caused  secession  from  England,  the  declara 
tion  of  independence,  and  the  confederation  which  won 
the  Revolutionary  war.  To  summarize  the  foregoing: 
Southern  nationalization  evolved  the  southern  union, 
and  American  nationalization  evolved  the  American 
union.  The  fathers,  with  the  usual  undiscernment  of 
contemporaries,  by  a  most  natural  hysteron  proteron 
conceived  the  latter  union  to  be  the  work,  product,  and 
result  of  the  constitution.  In  the  intersectional  con 
tention,  the  south  accepted  the  mistakes  of  the  fathers 
and  rested  her  cause  upon  them,  and  the  north,  instead 
of  correcting  them,  substituted  a  huge  and  glaring  mis 
take  of  her  own.  Advocating  the  maintenance  of  the 


64  The  Brothers'  War 

constitution  over  all  the  States,  she  sought  to  refute  the 
doctrine  of  State  sovereignty  urged  by  the  south  with 
the  arguments  of  those  who  had  opposed  the  adoption 
of  the  federal  constitution.  Patrick  Henry  and  Nathan 
Dane  —  we  omit  the  others  —  argued  that  the  constitu 
tion,  if  ratified,  would  really  wipe  out  State  lines  and 
make  the  central  government  supreme  in  authority  over 
the  States,  and  actually  sovereign.  Could  the  people  of 
the  thirteen  States  have  been  made  to  believe  this,  they 
would  have  unanimously  rejected  the  instrument.  Wash 
ington,  Hamilton,  Madison,  and  many  others  competent 
to  advise,  stood  in  solid  phalanx  on  the  other  side,  and 
the  people  were  convinced  by  them  that  adoption  would 
have  no  such  effect.  They  decided  that  the  arguments 
were  not  good,  and  the  constitution  was  ratified.  But 
the  discredited  arguments  were  afterwards,  by  a  very 
queer  psychological  process,  taken  up  by  Story,  Web 
ster,  and  a  great  host,  and  paraded  as  unanswerable 
refutation  of  the  doctrine  of  State  sovereignty,  and 
demonstration  that  by  the  constitution  the  United 
States  had  acquired  absolute  supremacy  over  the  differ 
ent  States.1  At  a  later  place  we  will  try  to  show  you 
how  Webster's  glory  outshines  that  of  every  other  actor, 
except  Lincoln,  in  the  great  struggle  between  north  and 
south.  But  here  we  must  emphasize  how,  when  sup 
porting  the  fallacies  of  Patrick  Henry  and  Nathan  Dane, 
he  met  the  one  real  and  signal  defeat  of  his  life,  to  which 
the  drubbing  he  received  from  Binney  in  the  Girard 
College  case  was  a  small  affair  —  a  defeat  none  the  less 
signal  because  at  the  time,  and  long  afterwards,  it  was 
and  still  is  crowned  as  a  glorious  victory  by  thousands 
upon  thousands. 

1  See  the  Republic  of  Republics,  4th  ed.  The  references  in  the  copi 
ous  index,  under  the  names  Dane,  Henry,  Story,  Webster  (Daniel,  not 
Noah),  will  suffice  to  put  the  student  in  the  way  to  finding  ample  support 
of  the  statements  in  the  text. 


American  Nationalization  65 

The  force-bill  had  just  been  introduced  into  the  sen 
ate,  of  the  United  States.  It  provided  for  the  collection 
of  the  revenue  in  defiance  of  the  nullification  ordinance 
of  South  Carolina.  The  next  day,  January  22,  1833, 
Calhoun  offered  in  that  body  his  famous  resolutions, 
embodying  his  doctrine  of  nullification,  under  which  he 
justified  the  ordinance  just  mentioned.  The  i6th  of 
the  next  month,  Webster  discussed  the  two  cardinal  ones 
of  these  resolutions  at  length.  As  he  summarized  them, 
they  affirmed : 

"  i.  That  the  political  system  under  which  we  live,  and  under 
which  congress  is  now  assembled,  is  a  compact,  to  which  the 
people  of  the  several  States,  as  separate  and  sovereign  com 
munities,  are  the  parties. 

2.  That  these  sovereign  parties  have  aright  to  judge,  each 
for  itself,  of  any  alleged  violation  of  the  constitution  by  con 
gress;  and  in  case  of  such  violation,  to  choose,  each  for  itself, 
its  own  mode  and  measure  of  redress." 

He  had  not  long  before  contemplated  making  an  ad 
dress  to  the  public  in  answer  to  Calhoun's  pro-nullifica 
tion  letter  to  Governor  Hamilton  in  the  form  of  a  letter 
from  himself  to  Kent ;  and  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  he 
had  got  himself  ready  for  this ;  nor  can  it  be  doubted  that 
in  the  twenty-five  days'  interim  he  had  not  only  worked 
over  and  adapted  the  unused  materials  of  the  address 
mentioned,  but  he  had  most  diligently  made  special 
preparation  for  his  speech  —  in  short,  it  may  be  assumed 
that  he  had  bestowed  upon  the  subject  of  the  resolutions 
the  most  searching  examination  and  profound  medita 
tion  of  which,  with  his  superhuman  powers,  he  was 
capable.  In  spite  of  all  his  conscientious  labors,  as  I 
am  now  especially  concerned  to  impress  upon  you,  he 
injured  and  set  back  the  cause  of  the  union  by  defend 
ing  it  with  answerable  arguments  —  nay,  rather,  with 
arguments  helping  the  other  side. 

5 


66  The  Brothers'  War 

At  the  outset  he  severely  and  sternly  rebukes  two 
terms  of  Calhoun's,  one  being  the  use  of  constitutional 
compact  for  constitution,  and  the  other  being  the  accession 
of  a  State  to  the  constitution.  These  terms  are  utterly 
impermissible,  and  are  to  be  scouted.  If  we  accept 
them,  iv e  must  acquiesce  in  tJie  monstrous  conclusions 
wliich  the  author  of  the  resolutions  draws  from  them. 
That  is  really  what  Webster  says.  Note  the  confident 
positiveness  of  his  pertinent  language,  some  of  which 
we  subjoin : 

"  It  is  easy,  quite  easy,  to  see  why  the  honorable  gentleman 
has  used  it  [constitutional  compact]  in  these  resolutions.  He 
cannot  open  the  book,  and  look  upon  our  written  frame  of 
government,  without  seeing  that  it  is  called  a  constitution.  This 
may  well  be  appalling  to  him.  It  threatens  his  whole  doctrine 
of  compact,  and  its  darling  derivatives,  nullification  and  seces 
sion,  with  instant  confutation.  Because,  if  he  admits  our  instru 
ment  of  government  to  be  a  constitution,  then,  for  that  very 
reason,  it  is  not  a  compact  between  sovereigns ;  a  constitution  of 
government  and  a  compact  between  sovereign  powers  being 
things  essentially  unlike  in  their  very  natures,  and  incapable  of 
ever  being  the  same. 

We  know  no  more  of  a  constitutional  compact  between  sov 
ereign  powers  than  we  know  of  a  constitutional  indenture  of 
copartnership,  a  constitutional  bill  of  exchange.  But  we  know 
what  the  constitution  is ;  we  know  what  the  bond  of  our  union 
and  the  security  of  our  liberties  is ;  and  we  mean  to  maintain  and 
to  defend  it,  in  its  plain  sense  and  unsophisticated  meaning." 

This  is  enough  of  the  exorcism  of  that  malignant 
spirit,  constitutional  compact.  Now  as  to  the  other 
malignant  spirit.  Webster  says: 

"  The  first  resolution  declares  that  the  people  of  the  several 
States  '  acceded'  to  the  constitution,  or  to  the  constitutional  com 
pact,  as  it  is  called.  This  word  '  accede,'  not  found  either  in 
the  constitution  itself,  or  in  the  ratification  of  it  by  any  one  of 


American  Nationalization  67 

the  States,  has  been  chosen  for  use  here,  doubtless,  not  without 
a  well-considered  purpose. 

The  natural  converse  of  accession  is  secession  ;  and,  therefore, 
when  it  is  stated  that  the  people  of  the  States  acceded  to  the 
union,  it  may  be  more  plausibly  argued  that  they  may  secede 
from  it.  If  in  adopting  the  constitution,  nothing  was  done  but 
acceding  to  a  compact,  nothing  would  seem  necessary  to  break  it 
up,  but  to  secede  from  the  same  compact.  But  the  term  is  wholly 
out  of  place.  .  .  .  The  people  of  the  United  States  have  used  no 
such  form  of  expression  in  establishing  the  present  government. 
They  do  not  say  that  they  accede  to  a  league,  but  they  declare 
that  they  ordain  and  establish  a  constitution.  Such  are  the  very 
words  of  the  instrument  itself;  and  in  all  the  States,  without 
exception,  the  language  used  by  their  conventions  was,  that  they 
'  ratified  the  constitution ;  '  some  of  them  employing  the  addi 
tional  words  'assented  to'  and  *  adopted/  but  all  of  them 
'  ratifying. "' 

Note  that  I  have  italicized  in  the  quotation  certain 
admissions  of  Webster,  which,  in  case  his  premises 
should  be  disproved,  concede  the  cause  to  his  adversary. 
And  we  will  now  tell  you  how  Calhoun  did  disprove 
those  premises. 

He  showed  that  Webster  himself  had  in  a  senate 
speech  called  the  constitution  a  constitutional  compact ; 
and  that  President  Washington,  in  his  official  announce 
ment  to  congress,  described  North  Carolina  as  acceding 
to  the  union  by  the  ratification  she  had  at  last  made  of 
the  constitution. 

As  to  these  two  points  Calhoun  further  sustained  him 
self  with  unquestionable  authority  and  also  argument 
inconfutable  by  one  who,  like  Webster,  did  not  find  the 
true  ratio  decidcndi,  that  is,  the  effect  of  evolution  to 
bring  forth  the  nation. 

The  rest  of  Calhoun's  answer  will  be  considered  a  little 
later.  But  what  of  it  has  already  been  given  covers  the 


68  The  Brothers'  War 

essentials  of  the  controversy.  In  supporting  his  propo 
sition  that  the  States  were  sovereign  when  they  made 
the  constitution,  and  kept  their  entire  sovereignty  intact 
afterwards,  he  was  too  strong  for  his  antagonist.  And 
yet  had  his  knowledge  of  the  facts  been  fuller,  how  much 
better  he  could  have  done.  He  could  have  quoted  from 
all  the  great  men  who  made  the  constitution  and  secured 
its  ratification  language,  in  which  accede  is  used  again 
and  again  in  the  same  sense  as  it  is  in  his  resolutions. 

Likewise,  he  could  have  quoted  language  in  which 
they  designated  the  constitution  as  a  compact  or  some 
thing  synonymous.  Madison  —  to  mention  only  one 
of  many  instances  —  advocating  ratification  in  the 
Virginia  convention,  called  the  constitution  "  a  govern 
ment  of  a  federal  nature,  consisting  of  many  coequal 
sovereignties."  What  an  effective  argumentum  ad  homi- 
nem  could  Calhoun  have  found  in  the  provision  of  the 
constitution  of  the  State  of  Webster,  to  wit:  that  Massa 
chusetts  is  free,  sovereign,  and  independent,  retaining 
every  power  which  she  has  not  expressly  delegated  to 
the  United  States.1 

Webster  also  made  blunders  in  construing  the  context 
of  the  constitution,  as  well  as  the  clauses  specially  in 
volved,  in  contrasting  the  constitution  with  the  articles 
of  confederation,  and  in  his  reading  of  our  constitutional 
history.  These  blunders  were  exhaustively,  ably,  re 
lentlessly  exposed. 

We  who  are  trained  either  in  forensic  or  parliamentary 
debate  well  know  the  conquering  and  demolishing  reply. 
Although,  as  we  have  just  shown,  Calhoun's  reply  could 

l  See  Republic  of  Republics,  204-212  (chap.  viii.  of  Part  III.)  entitled 
"Daniel  Webster's  Masterpiece  of  Criticism,"  for  copious  proofs  of  the 
statements  made  in  the  text.  Hamilton,  Madison,  John  Jay,  and  Frank 
lin  are  cited,  and  some  eight  or  nine  quotations  from  Washington  are 
made.  The  chapter  is  also  instructive  in  showing  State-rights  utterances 
of  Webster  made  before  and  after  the  speech. 


American  Nationalization  69 

have  been  far  more  effective  than  it  really  was,  still  its 
success  and  triumph  were  so  evident  that  when  he 
closed,  John  Randolph,  who  had  heard  it,  wanted  a  hat 
obstructing  his  sight  removed,  so  that,  as  he  said,  he 
might  see  "  Webster  die,  muscle  by  muscle." 

Master  the  question  at  issue,  and  read  the  two 
speeches  as  impartially  as  you  strive  to  read  the  dis 
cussion  of  yEschines  and  Demosthenes,  and  if  you  are 
qualified  to  judge  of  debate  between  intellectual  giants 
you  must  admit  that  Webster  was  driven  from  every 
inch  of  ground  chosen  by  him  as  his  very  strongest, 
and  which  he  confidently  believed  that  he  could  hold 
against  the  world. 

Yet  the  union  men,  who  were  hosts  in  the  north  and 
numerous  even  in  the  south  at  that  time,  accepted 
Webster's  speech  as  the  bible  of  their  political  faith, 
and  as  its  reward  ennobled  him  with  the  pre-eminent 
title  of  Expounder  of  the  Constitution.  They  ignored, 
or  they  never  learned  of,  the  pulverizing  refutation.  But 
the  State-rights  men  and  the  south  generally  understood. 
Webster  also  understood.  He  did  not  make  any  real 
rejoinder.  And  his  subsequent  utterances  are  in  har 
mony  with  the  State-rights  doctrine  to  which  Calhoun 
seems  to  have  converted  him.1  I  fancy  that  with  that 
rare  humor  which  was  one  of  his  shining  gifts,  he 
dubbed  himself  in  his  secret  meditations,  "  Expounder 
because  not  expounding."  Later  I  shall  tell  you  how 
Webster  builded  better  than  he  knew,  and  that  there 
was,  after  all,  in  the  speech  that  which  fully  justifies  the 
worship  it  received  from  the  union  men. 

But  there  is  something  else  pertinent  to  be  learned 
here.  That  the  north  generally  found  out  only  what 
Webster  said  in  the  debate  for  his  side,  and  never  even 

1  See  Stephens,  War  between  the  States,  vol.  i.  388,  389-392,  397-8  j 
and  Republic  of  Republics,  4th  ed.,  207-211. 


70  The  Brothers1  War 

heard  of  what  was  said  on  the  other,  and  that  the  south 
became  at  once  familiar  with  both  speeches,  proves  that 
each  section  had  already  formed  its  own  belonging 
and  independent  public,  and  that  the  southern  public 
kept  attentive  watch  upon  all  affairs  of  fact  or  opinion 
interesting  the  other,  while  the  northern  public  knew 
hardly  anything  at  all  of  the  south.  A  large  percentage 
of  the  southern  leaders  had  studied  in  northern  schools 
and  colleges.  In  this  and  many  other  ways  they  had 
been  instructed  as  to  the  north.  Such  instruction  con 
tributed  very  greatly  to  southern  supremacy  in  the  fed 
eral  government  until  the  election  of  Lincoln.  We  can 
now  see  that  the  powers  in  charge,  as  a  part  of  their 
work,  made  the  great  northern  public,  which,  as  Lincoln 
observed,  was  to  be  the  savior  of  the  union,  stop  its 
ears  to  all  anti-union  sentiments  or  arguments.  How 
else  can  you  understand  it  that  the  ante-bellum  notices 
of  Webster,  the  memoir  by  Everett,  the  different  utter 
ances  of  Choate,  and  many,  many  other  sketches,  are 
so  utterly  dumb  as  to  Calhoun's  great  reply?  And  is 
not  the  same  dumbness  of  Curtis,  Von  Hoist,  and 
McMaster,  writing  after  the  war,  due  to  the  survival  in 
the  north  of  the  old  constraint?  a  constraint  so  powerful 
that,  while  Mr.  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  in  1883,  did  concede 
just  a  little  to  Calhoun,  he  stopped  far  short  of  the  full 
justice  that  I  believe  he  would  now  render  were  he  to 
traverse  the  ground  again. 

We  must  now  go  beyond  what  we  have  already  hinted, 
and  show  you  plainly  how  both  the  union  men  and  the 
State-rights  men  assumed  untenable  premises,  and  how 
the  south,  maintaining  a  cause  foredoomed,  vanquished 
in  the  forum  of  discussion  her  adversary,  maintaining 
the  side  which  fate  had  decreed  must  win.  In  no  other 
way  can  the  reader  be  better  made  to  understand  the 
incalculable  potency  of  the  forces  which  preserved  the 


American  Nationalization  71 

American  union  after  its  orators  and  advocates  had  all 
been  discomfited;  and  in  no  other  way  can  he  better 
learn  what  principles  are  to  be  invoked  if  he  would 
grasp  the  real  essence  of  the  union. 

We  emphasize  the  material  and  cardinal  mistake  of 
the  union  men,  thus  phrased  by  Webster  in  the  speech 
we  have  discussed :  "  Whether  the  constitution  be  a 
compact  between  States  in  their  sovereign  capacities, 
is  a  question  which  must  be  mainly  argued  from  what 
is  contained  in  the  instrument  itself." 

This  was  to  abandon  inexpugnable  ground.  That 
ground  was  the  great  body  of  pertinent  facts,  known  to 
all,  which  begun  the  making  of  the  union  before  the 
declaration  of  independence,  and  which,  from  that  time 
on  to  the  very  hour  that  Webster  was  speaking,  had 
been  making  the  union  stronger  and  more  perfect.  He 
ought  to  have  contended  that  a  nation  grows;  that  it 
cannot  be  made,  or  be  at  all  modified,  even  by  a 
constitution.  Any  constitution  is  its  creature,  not  its 
creator. 

How  weak  he  was  when  he  invoked  construction  of 
the  federal  constitution  as  the  main  umpire.  That 
constitution  had  been  always  construed  against  him. 
The  three  departments  of  the  federal  government  had 
each  uniformly  treated  it  as  a  compact  between  sover 
eign  States;  and  they  kept  this  up  until  the  brothers' 
war  broke  out.  Mr.  Stephens,  in  his  great  compilation,1 
demonstrates  this  unanswerably.  But  the  State-rights 
men  had  a  still  greater  strength  than  even  this,  if  the 
question  be  conceded  to  be  one  of  construction.  As  the 
author  of  the  Republic  of  Republics  shows  by  a  moun 
tain  of  proofs,  the  illustrious  draftsmen  of  the  constitution 
and  their  contemporaries  who  finally  got  the  constitution 
adopted  —  all  the  people,  high  and  low,  who  favored 

1  War  between  the  States,  two  volumes. 


72  The  Brothers'  War 

the  cause  —  declared  at  the  time  that  the  sovereignty  of 
the  States  would  remain  unimpaired  after  adoption.1 

To  sum  up,  the  generation  that  drafted  and  adopted 
the  constitution,  and  all  the  succeeding  ones  who  had 
lived  under  it,  agreed  that  the  States  were  sovereign. 

How  could  even  Webster  talk  these  facts  out  of  exist 
ence?  At  every  stage  of  the  intersectional  debate  the 
cause  of  the  south  supporting  State  sovereignty  became 
stronger.  And  there  were  great  hosts  at  the  north  who 
understood  the  record  as  the  south  did  ;  and,  while  they 
hoped  and  prayed  that  separation  would  never  come, 
they  conscientiously  conceded  State  sovereignty  to  the 
full.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  the  fact  that,  although  the 
federal  soldiers  cherished  deep  love  for  the  union,  a 
very  great  majority  of  the  more  intelligent  among  them 
did  not  long  keep  at  its  height  the  emotion  excited  by 
the  attack  on  Fort  Sumter,  and  soon  settled  back  into 
their  former  creed,  holding,  because  of  the  reasons 
summarized  above,  the  States  to  be  sovereign ;  and 
while  they  thought  it  supreme  folly  in  the  south  to  set 

1  The  Republic  of  Republics;  or,  American  Federal  Liberty.  By  P.  C. 
Centz,  Barrister,  4th  ed.,  Boston,  1881.  See  what  I  said  of  it  in  1882,  Am. 
Law  Studies,  §§  943,  944.  Subsequent  examination  and  comparison 
have  given  me  a  still  higher  opinion  of  this  book ;  which  in  its  well- 
digested  presentation  of  evidence  exhaustively  collected,  and  complete 
demonstration  of  its  main  proposition,  to  wit,  that  in  the  opinion  of  the 
draftsmen,  also  of  all  the  advocates  of  the  constitution,  and  of  the  people 
ratifying,  the  States  were  sovereign  before  adoption  and  would  so  re 
main  afterwards,  is  unique,  and  far  foremost,  in  the  literature  of  the 
subject.  Compare  this  strong  statement  of  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  uttered 
in  1883 : 

"  When  the  constitution  was  adopted  by  the  votes  of  States  at  Phila 
delphia,  and  accepted  by  the  votes  of  States  in  popular  conventions,  it  is 
safe  to  say  that  there  was  not  a  man  in  the  country,  from  Washington  and 
Hamilton  on  the  one  side,  to  George  Clinton  and  George  Mason  on  the 
other,  who  regarded  the  new  system  as  anything  but  an  experiment  by 
the  States  and  from  which  each  and  every  State  had  the  right  peaceably 
to  withdraw,  a  right  which  was  very  likely  to  be  exercised,"  Daniel 
Webster,  176. 


American  Nationalization  73 

up  the  confederacy,  they  still  believed  that  to  do  so  was 
but  the  exercise  of  an  indubitable  right  of  the  States 
creating  it.  From  what  I  saw  at  the  time,  and  the 
many  proofs  that  appeared  to  accumulate  upon  me 
afterwards,  this  explains  the  unprecedented  panic  with 
which  the  federal  army  abandoned  the  field  at  the  First 
Manassas.  Consider  just  a  moment.  The  federal  army, 
giving  the  confederates  a  complete  surprise,  turns  their 
position  and  drives  them  back  in  rout.  The  confeder 
ates  make  an  unexpected  stand,  fight  for  some  hours, 
and  at  last,  assuming  the  offensive,  win  the  field.  The 
troops  on  each  side  practically  all  raw  volunteers,  very 
much  alike  in  race  and  character.  But  the  federals  had 
much  more  than  two  to  one  engaged,  as  is  demonstrated 
by  the  fact  that  the  confederates  had  only  twenty-five 
regiments  of  infantry  in  action,  and  they  took  prisoners 
from  fifty-five.  The  more  one  who,  like  me,  observed 
much  of  the  war,  thinks  it  over,  the  more  clearly  he 
sees  that  the  flight  from  Manassas  is  not  to  be  ex 
plained  because  of  the  superior  courage  and  stamina  of 
the  southern  soldiers.  I  believe  that  the  union  men, 
observing  how  brave  and  death-defying  their  brothers 
on  the  other  side  were  in  facing  disaster  that  seemed 
irretrievable  and  odds  irresistible,  at  last  became  con 
vinced  that  these  brothers,  defending  home  and  fire 
sides,  were  right,  and  that  they  themselves,  invading  an 
inviolably  sovereign  State,  were  heinously  wrong;  and 
thus  awakened  conscience  made  cowards  of  all  these 
gallant  men.  And  it  is  thoroughly  established,  I  be 
lieve,  that  everywhere  in  the  first  engagements  of  the 
war,  the  southern  volunteers,  if  they  were  commanded 
by  a  fighter,  showed  far  more  spirit  and  stomach  than 
their  adversaries.  In  the  amicable  meetings,  often  oc 
curring  upon  the  picket  line,  when  we  confederates 
would  with  good  humor  ask  the  union  men  how  it  was 


74  The  Brothers'  War 

that  we  won  so  many  fights,  it  was  a  stereotyped  reply 
of  the  latter,  "  Why,  you  are  fighting  for  your  country 
and  we  only  for  $13  a  month."  It  was  but  natural  that, 
by  reason  of  what  has  been  told  in  the  foregoing,  the 
south  unanimously,  and  a  very  large  number  at  the 
north,  should  believe  any  State  could  under  its  reserved 
powers  rightfully  secede  from  the  union  whenever  and 
for  whatever  cause  it  pleased. 

We  see  now  what  the  angry  brothers  did  not  see. 
The  absolute  sovereignty  of  the  States,  and  the  right  of 
secession  both  de  facto  and  de  jure  could  have  been 
conceded,  and  at  the  same  time  the  war  for  the  union 
justified.  The  unionists  could  well  have  said  to  the 
south : 

"  Your  independence  is  too  great  a  menace  to  our  interests 
to  be  tolerated,  and  the  high  duty  of  self-defence  commands 
that  we  resist  to  the  death.  The  status  quo  is  better  for  us  all. 
Now  that  you  have  set  up  for  yourself,  we  must  tell  you,  sadly 
but  firmly,  that  if  you  do  not  come  back  voluntarily,  we  must 
resort  to  coercion,  —  not  under  the  constitution,  for  you  have 
thrown  that  off,  but  under  the  law  of  nations  to  which  you  have 
just  subjected  yourself." 

The  man  who  of  all  southerners  has  given  State  sov 
ereignty  its  most  learned  and  able  defence  —  Sage,  the 
author  of  "  The  Republic  of  Republics  " —  says :  "  To 
coerce  a  state  is  unconstitutional ;  but  it  is  equally  true 
that  the  precedent  of  coercing  states  is  established,  and 
that  it  is  defensible  under  the  law  of  nations."  1 

To  have  received  the  confederate  commissioners  as 
representing  an  independent  nation,  and  made  demand 
that  the  seceding  States  return  to  the  union,  would  have 

1  Republic  of  Republics,  4th  ed.,  23.  The  entire  chapter  entitled 
"  Secession  and  Coercion/'  id.  22-27,  wiU  repay  consideration,  setting 
forth  as  it  does  what  according  to  the  author  the  brothers  on  each  side 
ought  to  have  done  under  the  law  of  nations. 


American  Nationalization  75 

been  a  far  stronger  theory  than  that  on  which  the  war 
was  avowedly  waged  ;  for  it  would  have  taken  from  the 
south  that  superiority  in  the  argument  which  had  given 
her  great  prestige  in  Europe,  and  even  in  the  north. 
And  lastly,  under  the  law  of  nations,  the  federal  govern 
ment,  after  coercing  the  seceding  States  back,  would 
have  had  —  even  according  to  the  theory  of  State  rights 
as  maintained  in  the  south  —  perfectly  legitimate  power 
to  abolish  slavery.  The  statement  that  emancipation 
was  "  sincerely  believed  to  be  an  act  of  justice,  warranted 
by  the  constitution,  upon  military  necessity,"  protests 
so  much  that  one  sees  that  the  highly  conscientious 
man  hesitated  and  doubted.  And  well  may  he  have 
doubted ;  for  what  warrant  can  be  found  in  the  consti 
tution  for  destroying  that  property  which  it  solemnly 
engaged  to  defend  and  protect  as  a  condition  precedent 
of  its  adoption?  —  that  is,  if  the  southern  States  were 
still  in  the  union  and  under  the  constitution,  as  was 
claimed  by  all  who  justified  the  proclamation?  But  if 
the  southern  States  had  gone  out  of  the  union,  they  had 
revoked  their  ratification  and  had  thrown  away  all  the 
protection  of  slavery  given  by  the  constitution;  and 
while  the  constitution  did  not  direct  how  the  federal 
government  should  act  in  the  matter,  the  law  of  nations 
gave  full  and  ample  directions.  Its  authority  was  not 
stinted  nor  hampered  by  any  rights  recognized  in  the 
constitution  as  reserved  to  the  States  under  it.  The 
subsequent  amendment,  imposed  as  a  condition  of  re 
construction,  shows  that  the  people  of  the  north  seri 
ously  questioned  if  slavery  had  been  abolished  by  the 
proclamation  and  its  enforcement  by  the  union  armies. 

But  this,  strong  as  it  was,  would  not  have  been  the 
true  theory.  The  true  theory  —  the  real  fact  —  is  that 
at  the  outbreak  of  the  brothers'  war,  and  long  before, 
the  States  had  become  more  closely  connected  than  the 


j6  The  Brothers'  War 

Siamese  Twins,  —  indissolubly  united  as  integral  parts 
of  the  same  organism,  like  the  different  trunks  of  the 
Banyan  tree ;  and  while  the  southern  nationalization 
was  opposing  the  union  forces  with  might  and  main,  it 
was  really  but  an  excrescence,  with  roots  far  more  shal 
low  than  those  of  the  American  union  —  a  parasite  like 
the  mistletoe,  growing  upon  the  American  body  politic, 
fated  to  die  of  itself  if  not  destroyed  by  its  fell  foe. 
For,  as  we  have  explained,  the  sole  motor  of  this  south 
ern  nationalization — slavery — could  no  more  maintain 
itself  permanently  against  free  labor  than  the  hand- 
loom  could  stand  against  the  steam-loom,  or  the  draft- 
horse  can  much  longer  compete  with  artificial  traction 
power. 

Now  let  us  rapidly  set  in  array  the  stronger  supports 
of  this  true  theory.  We  should  start  with  the  impulse 
to  combine  which  adjacency  always  gives  to  communi 
ties  of  the  same  origin  ;  and  external  compression  and 
joint  interest  to  those  of  diverse  origin,  as  we  see  in  the 
case  of  the  Swiss.  How  clearly  does  our  great  Amer 
ican  sociologist  trace  the  effect  of  this  impulse  in  ancient 
society.  First  a  body  of  consanguinei  grows  into  a 
gens;  after  a  while,  neighboring  gentes  of  the  same 
stock-language  form  a  tribe;  then  neighboring  tribes, 
as  some  of  the  Iroquois  and  Aztecs,  form  a  confederacy. 
At  this  point  the  development  of  the  American  Indians 
was  arrested  by  the  coming  of  the  whites.  "  A  coales 
cence  of  tribes  into  a  nation  had  not  occurred  in  any 
case  in  any  part  of  America,"  says  this  highest  authority.1 
But  we  can  easily  understand  what  would  have  occurred 
had  the  Indians  been  left  to  themselves.  They  would 
have  passed  out  of  the  nomadic  state  into  settlements  of 
fixed  abodes,  local  and  geographical  political  divisions 
evolving  from  the  old  gentes  and  tribes,  the  contiguous 

1  Lewis  H.  Morgan,  Ancient  Society,  103. 


American  Nationalization  77 

ones  often  uniting.  History  furnishes  many  examples 
of  neighboring  communities  coalescing  into  nations. 
One  of  the  most  remarkable  of  all  is  the  environment 
which  has  constrained  peoples  of  four  different  lan 
guages  to  coalesce  into  the  little  Swiss  nation.  Turning 
away  from  prehistoric  times  and  also  ancient  history, 
let  the  student  re-enforce  the  case  of  the  Swiss,  just  al 
luded  to,  with  the  modern  nation-making  in  Italy  and 
Germany.  These  few  of  the  many  instances  which  can 
be  given  show  how  and  what  sorts  of  adjacent  commu 
nities  are  prone  to  co-operate  or  combine  for  a  common 
purpose,  and  how  such  combination  develops  at  last  an 
irresistible  proneness  to  national  union.  Drops  of  liquid 
in  proximity  to  one  another  on  a  plane  may  long  main 
tain  each  their  independent  forms ;  but  bring  them  into 
actual  contact,  and  presto  !  all  the  globules  have  coa 
lesced  into  a  single  mass.  After  the  belonging  part  of 
the  evolutionary  science  of  sociology  has  been  fully  de 
veloped  —  which  time  does  not  seem  very  far  off —  the 
subject  will  receive  adequate  illustration.  Then  all  of 
us  will  understand  that,  many  years  before  Alamance 
and  Lexington,  the  colonies,  in  their  defence  of  them 
selves  against  the  Indians  and  the  French,  in  their  in 
tercommunication  over  innumerable  matters  of  joint 
interest,  in  the  beneficent  example  of  the  Iroquois  con 
federacy  and  the  advice  of  our  fathers  by  the  Iroquois, 
as  early  as  1755,  to  form  one  of  the  colonies  similar  to 
their  own,1  and  in  many  other  things  that  can  be  sug 
gested,  were  steadily  becoming  one  people,  and  more  and 
more  predisposed  to  political  union.  We  shall  also  see, 
much  more  clearly  than  we  do  yet,  that  the  Revolution 
ary  war,  by  keeping  them  some  years  under  a  general 
government,  imparted  new  and  powerful  impetus  to  the 
nationalizing  forces,  which  were  working  none  the  less 

1  Morgan,  Ancient  Society,  132. 


78  The  Brothers'  War 

surely  because  unobserved.  Our  lesson  will  be  com 
pletely  learned  when  we  recognize  that  about  the  time 
the  war  with  the  mother  country  commenced  the  glob 
ules,  that  is,  the  separate  colonies,  had  become  actu 
ally  a  quasi-political  whole,  —  a  stage  of  evolution  so 
near  to  that  of  full  nationality  that  it  is  hard  to  distin 
guish  the  two.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  nation  had  come 
at  least  into  rudimentary  existence  when  the  declaration 
of  independence  was  made.  Surely  from  that  time  on 
something  wondrously  like  a  de  facto  national  union  of 
the  old  colonies  grew  rapidly,  and  became  stronger  and 
stronger  ;  and  this  to  me  is  the  sufficient  and  only  ex 
planation  of  the  seismic  popular  upheaval  that  displaced 
the  weaker  government  under  the  articles  of  confedera 
tion  with  one  endowed  by  the  federal  constitution  with 
ample  powers  to  administer  the  affairs  of  the  nation  now 
beginning  to  stir  with  consciousness.  And  yet  so  blind 
was  everybody  that  in  1787  the  delegates  and  their  con 
stituents  all  believed  the  convention  to  be  the  organ  of 
the  States,  when  in  truth  it  was  the  organ  of  the  new 
American  nation.  Prompted  by  a  self-preserving  in 
stinct,  this  nationality  deftly  kept  itself  hid.  Had  it  been 
disclosed,  the  federal  constitution  could  not  have  been 
adopted  ;  and  had  a  suspicion  of  it  come  a  few  years 
later,  there  would  have  been  successful  secession.  And 
so  each  State  dreamed  on  its  sweet  dream  of  dominion 
until  the  call  to  the  stars  and  stripes  rang  through  the 
north.  Then  its  people  began  darkly  and  dimly  to  dis 
cern  the  nationalization  which  had  united  the  States  and 
become  a  hoop  of  adamant  to  hold  the  union  forever 
stanch.  Of  course  to  the  south  nothing  appeared  but 
the  State  sovereignty  of  the  fathers.  Her  illuded  sight 
was  far  clearer  and  more  confident  than  the  true  vision 
of  the  north,  and  she  magnified  State  sovereignty  which 
she  thought  she  saw,  and  damned  the  American  nation- 


American  Nationalization  79 

ality  preached  by  the  north  as  antiState-rights,  when  at 
that  very  time  a  nationality  of  her  own  had  really  put 
all  the  southern  States  at  its  feet.  It  mattered  not  for 
the  thick  perception  of  the  north  and  the  optical  illusion 
of  the  south,  the  American  nation  was  now  full  grown ; 
and  by  the  result  of  the  brothers'  war  it  made  good  its 
claim  to  sovereignty. 

The  historian  must  accurately  gauge  the  effect  wrought 
by  the  wonderfully  successful  career  of  the  United 
States  under  the  federal  constitution  in  its  first  years. 
War  with  France  imminent,  Pinckney's  winged  word, 
"  Millions  for  defence,  but  not  a  cent  for  tribute,"  the 
sword  buckled  on  again  by  the  father  of  his  country  — 
and  peace;  the  extension  of  our  domain  from  the  Miss 
issippi  to  the  Pacific  by  the  Louisiana  purchase;  the 
victories  won  against  the  men  who  used  to  say  scorn 
fully  that  our  fathers  could  not  stand  the  bayonet,  and 
the  still  more  surprising  victories  won  with  an  impro 
vised  navy  against  the  mistress  of  the  seas,  in  the  war 
of  1812;  the  brilliant  operations  of  Decatur  against 
Algiers;  the  military  power  of  the  Indians  decisively 
and  permanently  outclassed,  until  soon  our  women  and 
children  on  the  border  were  practically  secure  against 
the  tomahawk  and  scalping  knife ;  and  perhaps  above 
all  the  world-wide  spaciousness,  as  it  were,  and  the  in 
expressibly  greater  dignity  and  splendor  of  the  federal 
arena,  as  compared  with  that  of  any  single  colony  or 
State,  which  was  opened  at  once  to  every  ambitious 
spirit  —  these  are  some,  only,  of  the  feats  and  achieve 
ments  which  gave  the  United  States  unquestioned 
authority  at  home  and  incomparable  prestige  around 
the  world.  And  on  and  on  the  American  nation  rushed, 
from  one  stage  of  growth  into  and  through  another, 
until  the  result  was  that  for  some  years  before  secession 
State  sovereignty,  for  all  of  the  high  airs  it  gave  itself 


8o  The  Brothers'  War 

and  the  imposing  show  of  respect  it  extorted,  had  be 
come  merely  a  survival. 

Thus  did  the  American  nation  form,  from  a  number  of 
different  neighboring,  cognate,  and  very  closely-akin 
communities,  under  that  complex  of  the  forces  of  growth 
and  those  of  combination  which  imperceptibly  and  re- 
sistlessly  steers  the  social  organism  along  the  entire  track 
of  its  evolution.  The  nationalizing  leaven  was  hidden 
by  the  powers  in  charge  of  our  national  destiny  in  the 
colonial  meal,  and  it  had  in  time  so  completely  leavened 
the  whole  lump  that  Rhode  Island,  and  North  Carolina, 
trying  hard  to  stay  out,  and  Texas  desporting  joyfully 
and  proudly  under  the  lone  star  in  her  golden  independ 
ence,  could  not  break  the  invisible  leading  strings,  which 
pulled  all  three  into  the  United  States.  Note  how  Ore 
gon  and  California,  though  largely  settled  from  the  south 
yet  being  without  slavery,  in  their  extreme  remoteness 
from  the  brothers'  war  adhered  to  the  union  cause.  And 
had  the  southern  confederacy  triumphed  in  the  war,  the 
States  in  it  would  have  staid  out  of  the  federal  union 
only  the  few  years  necessary  for  slavery  to  run  its  course. 
When  there  was  no  more  virgin  soil  for  cotton,  the 
southern  nation,  which  was  merely  a  growth  upon  the 
American  nation,  would  have  collapsed  of  itself,  as  did 
the  State  of  Frankland  ;  and  that  continental  brotherhood 
which  brought  in  Rhode  Island,  North  Carolina,  and 
Texas,  would  have  commandingly  reasserted  itself.  The 
more  you  contemplate  the  facts,  the  more  it  is  seen  that 
this  continental  brotherhood  was  and  is  the  most  vigor 
ous  tap-root  and  stock  of  nationality  in  all  history.  The 
providence  which  at  first  gradually  and  surely  mixed 
the  colonies  into  one  people,  then  into  a  feeble  and 
infirm  political  whole,  rapidly  hardening  in  consistency, 
and  lastly  into  an  indissoluble  union,  and  which  was 
from  the  beginning  more  and  more  developing  us  into 


American  Nationalization  8 1 

a  nation  —  this  overruling  evolution,  and  not  constitu 
tion  or  lawmaking  organs,  has  been,  is,  and  always 
will  be  the  ultimate  and  supreme  authority,  the  oppose- 
less  lawgiver,  the  resistlessly  self-executing  higher  law 
in  America,  creating,  altering,  modifying  or  abolishing 
man-made  constitutions,  laws,  ordinances,  and  statutes, 
as  suits  its  own  true  democratic  purpose,  often  inscru 
table  to  contemporaries. 

The  foregoing  is  the  substance  of  the  argument  that 
must  now  take  the  place  of  that  made  by  Webster  and 
the  unionists  after  him,  which  was  convincingly  confuted 
by  the  south.  It  proves  the  complete  and  immaculate 
justice  of  the  war  for  the  union. 

This  view  differs  from  the  other,  which  we  admitted 
above  to  be  very  strong,  mainly  in  refusing  to  concede 
that  a  State  is  sovereign  and  can  legitimately  secede  at 
will.  But  under  it,  it  ought  to  be  conceded  that  the 
States  in  the  southern  confederacy  were  for  the  time 
actually  out  of  the  American  union  by  revolution.  It 
is  not  possible  to  say  they  were  in  rebellion ;  that  is 
an  offence  of  individuals  standing  by  an  authority  hastily 
improvised  and  manifestly  sham.  It  was  not  by  the 
action  of  individuals,  but  it  was  by  the  action  of  States, 
veritable  political  entities  and  quasi  sovereigns,  that  the 
confederacy  was  organized.  When  these  States  were 
coerced  back,  they  could  not  invoke  the  protection 
to  their  slaves  given  in  a  constitution  which  they  had 
solemnly  repudiated.  The  United  States  could  there 
fore  deal  with  them  as  it  had  with  the  Territories  from 
which  it  excluded  slavery.  While  of  course  adequate 
protection  of  the  freedmen  against  their  former  masters 
ought  to  have  been  provided,  it  should  at  the  same  time 
have  been  made  clear  to  the  world  that  slavery  was 
abolished  solely  because  events  had  demonstrated  it  to 
be  the  only  root  and  cause  of  dismemberment  of  the 

6 


82  The  Brothers'  War 

union.  Such  a  familiar  example  as  the  often-exercised 
power  of  a  municipality  to  blow  up  a  house,  without 
compensation  therefor,  to  stop  the  progress  of  conflagra 
tion,  and  many  other  seemingly  arbitrary  acts  done  by 
society  in  its  self-preservation,  would  have  occurred  to 
conscientious  people  contemplating.  And  it  would  have 
been  a  long  flight  in  morals  above  the  proclamation, 
merely  to  have  justified  emancipation  on  the  ground 
that  the  existence  of  slavery  was  a  serious  menace  to 
the  life  of  the  nation. 

One's  logic  may  be  often  wrong,  and  yet  his  propo 
sition  has  been  rightly  given  him  by  an  instinct,  as  we 
so  often  see  in  the  case  of  good  women.  O  this  sublim 
inal  self  of  ours,  how  it  bends  us  hither  and  thither, 
as  the  solid  hemisphere  does  the  little  human  figure 
upon  it,  posing  with  a  seeming  will  of  his  own  !  Hence, 
and  not  from  our  argument-making  faculty,  come  not 
only  our  own  most  important  principles  of  action,  but 
also  our  very  strongest  persuasive  influence.  And  it  is 
the  subconscious  mental  forces  moving  great  masses 
of  men  and  women  all  the  same  way  —  that  is,  the 
national  instincts  —  which  are  the  all-conquering  powers 
that  the  apostle  of  a  good  cause  arouses  and  sets  in  array. 
And  while  it  is  true  that  the  mere  logic  of  Webster's 
anti-nullification  speech  is  puerile,  the  after  world  will 
more  and  more  couple  that  speech  with  the  reply  to 
Hayne,  and  keep  the  two  at  the  top  —  above  every 
effort  of  all  other  orators.  In  the  reply  to  Hayne,  in 
1830,  he  had  magnified  the  union  in  a  passage  which  ever 
since  has  deservedly  led  all  selections  for  American 
speech  books.  And  now,  in  1833,  when  dismemberment 
actually  makes  menace  of  its  ugly  self,  the  great  wizard 
of  speech  that  takes  consciences  and  hearts  captive,1 

1  "  It  used  to  be  a  remark  often  made  by  Chief  Justice  Lumpkin,  who 
was  a  man  himself  of  wonderful  genius,  profound  learning,  and  the  first 


American  Nationalization  83 

proclaimed  to  his  countrymen  that  there  could  be  no 
such  thing  as  lawful  secession  or  nullification.  The 
earnestness  and  the  emphasis  with  which  he  said  this 
were  supreme  merits  of  the  speech.  And  thenceforth 
it  was  enough  to  the  hosts  of  the  north  to  remember 
that  the  American,  towering  like  a  mountain  above  them 
all,  had  in  his  high  place  solemnly  declared  that  seces 
sion  is  necessarily  revolution.  And,  to  one  who  is  famil 
iar  with  the  hypnotizing  effect  of  subconscious  national 
suggestion  it  is  not  strange  that  they  scouted  Calhoun's 
demolishing  reply,  and  treasured  Webster's  false  logic 
as  supreme  and  perfect  exposition  of  the  constitution. 

of  his  State,  that  Webster  was  always  foremost  amongst  those  with  whom 
he  acted  on  any  question,  and  that  even  in  books  of  selected  pieces,  when 
ever  selections  were  made  from  Webster,  these  were  the  best  in  the  book." 
A.  H.  Stephens,  War  between  the  States,  vol.  i.  336. 


CHAPTER   VI 

ROOT-AND-BRANCH  ABOLITIONISTS  AND  FIRE-EATERS 

FOR  a  long  while  opposition  to  slavery  was  mod 
erate  and  not  unreasoning.  The  first  actual 
quarrel  over  it  between  the  sections  was  when 
Missouri  applied  for  admission  to  the  union  in  1818. 
That  was  settled  by  the  famous  compromise  of  1820. 
The  most  of  the  anti-slavery  men  of  that  day  stood  only 
against  the  extension  of  slavery.  While  many  a  one  of 
them  believed  his  conviction  was  dictated,  independently 
and  entirely,  by  his  conscience,  it  was  in  fact  given  him 
because  of  his  relation  to  the  free-labor  nationalization 
claiming  the  public  lands  for  itself.  That  was  also  true 
of  the  great  mass  of  northerners  opposed  to  slavery 
down  to  the  very  beginning  of  the  war.  They  wanted 
the  Territories  for  themselves.  The  contest  between  the 
United  States  and  England  for  Oregon  is  a  parallel  case. 
The  American  felt,  if  this  territory  falls  to  the  United 
States,  I  and  my  children  and  children's  children  can 
get  cheap  land  somewhere  in  it ;  but  if  it  falls  to  Eng 
land,  I  and  they  are  forever  shut  out.  In  the  intersec- 
tional  contest  over  the  public  lands  northerners  felt 
that  they  would  be  practically  excluded  from  any  part 
of  them  into  which  slavery  was  carried ;  for  infinitely 
preferring,  as  they  did,  the  free-labor  system,  to  which 
they  had  been  bred,  to  the  slavery  system,  of  which  they 
had  no  experience,  and  against  which  they  were  preju 
diced,  they  would  never  voluntarily  settle  where  it  ob 
tained.  This,  the  prevalent  view,  brought  about  the 


Root-and-Branch  Abolitionists  85 

compromise  of  1820,  by  which  all  the  territory  north 
of  36°  30'  was  guaranteed  to  free  labor,  that  is,  to  the 
north,  not  because  its  inhabitants  were  burning  with 
zeal  to  repress  the  spread  of  what  they  thought  to 
be  an  unspeakable  moral  wrong,  but  because  they 
purposed  thereby  to  insure  a  fair  inheritance  to  their 
own  children. 

So  much  for  what  we  have  called  the  first  quarrel  be 
tween  the  sections  over  slavery.  Let  us  now  glance  at 
the  stages  following  until  the  root-and-branch  abolitionist 
shows  himself. 

For  some  twenty  years  after  the  Missouri  compromise 
was  made  there  was  hardly  any  public  agitation  at  all  as 
to  slavery.  In  1840  an  abolition  ticket  for  the  presi 
dency  was  nominated,  but  it  received  a  support  much 
smaller  than  had  been  currently  predicted.  It  is  not 
until  January,  1836,  when,  upon  Calhoun's  motion  in 
the  senate  of  the  United  States  to  reject  two  petitions 
for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia, 
there  ensued  a  prolonged  and  passionate  discussion,  that 
we  can  say  that  the  old  free-soil  practically  begins  to 
pass  into  an  abolition  movement.  Here  moral  attack 
upon  slavery  seriously  begins.  If  we  think  but  a  mo 
ment  we  will  understand  it  too  well  to  explain  it  as  an 
arousal  of  conscience,  which  ought  to  have  been  aroused 
many  years  before  if  slavery  was  indeed  the  terrible  sin 
the  abolitionists  now  commenced  to  say  it  was.  The 
agitation  of  1830,  the  year  that  Webster  replied  to 
Hayne,  and  that  of  1833,  when  he  and  Calhoun  crossed 
swords  over  nullification,  mark  a  great  advance  of  inter- 
sectional  antagonism  beyond  that  of  the  time  of  the 
Missouri  compromise.  We  can  see  now  as  we  look 
back  what  contemporaries  could  not  see,  that  is,  that 
the  two  were  avant  couriers  of  the  southern  confederacy. 
But  some  of  the  contemporaries  did  discern  the  fact  — 


86  The  Brothers'  War 

not  consciously,  but  instinctively.  With  these  there  was, 
in  subliminal  ratiocination,  a  process  somewhat  as  fol 
lows  :  The  southern  confederacy,  if  it  does  come,  will 
disrupt  the  union,  which  assures,  while  it  lasts,  immu 
nity  of  our  country  from  frequent  wars  upon  its  own 
soil,  and  from  the  heavy  load  of  great  armies  kept  up 
even  in  the  intervals  of  peace.  This  disruption  will  es 
tablish  in  America  all  the  evil  conditions  of  Europe  from 
which  our  fathers  fled  hither.  Slavery  is  the  vis  matrix, 
the  sole  developing  force,  the  life  of  this  menaced  confed 
eracy.  Let  us  abolish  slavery,  and  preserve  the  union. 

How  accurately  the  common  instincts  —  especially 
those  protecting  our  private  interests  —  discern  both 
the  favorable  and  unfavorable,  becomes  more  of  a  mar 
vel  to  me  every  year.  To  them  the  favorable  is  morally 
right,  the  unfavorable  morally  wrong.  If  the  latter 
threatens  great  injury,  they  excite  against  it  deep-seated 
indignation  as  if  it  were  a  crime.  How  else  can  you  ex 
plain  it  that  all  the  churches,  accepting  the  same  Christ 
and  worshipping  the  same  God,  were  at  last  divided,  the 
northern  churches  impugning  and  the  southern  churches 
defending  slavery.  Dwell  upon  this  fact  until  you  inter 
pret  it  aright.  On  one  side  the  most  conscientious  and 
the  best  of  the  north  unanimous  that  slavery  is  morally 
wrong;  on  the  other  the  most  conscientious  and  best 
of  the  south  unanimous  that  it  is  morally  right.  Then 
think  of  the  northern  and  southern  statesmen,  jurists, 
and  the  great  public  leaders;  and  at  the  last  consider 
that  the  entire  people  of  one  section  prayed  for,  fought 
and  died  for,  slavery,  while  that  of  the  other  did  the 
same  things  against  it.  When  you  do  this,  you  must 
admit  that  our  community,  our  country,  the  society 
of  which  we  are  members,  fashions  our  consciences  and 
makes  our  opinions. 

The  economic  interest  of  the  north  was  against  slav- 


Root-and-Branch  Abolitionists          87 

ery.  It  was  her  interest  to  get  all  the  territory  possible 
for  opportunity  to  her  free  workers.  It  was  also  a  tran 
scendent  economic  interest  of  hers  that  there  be  no 
great  foreign  power  near  her  to  require  of  her  that  she 
put  thousands  of  bread-winners  and  wealth-makers  to 
idle  in  a  standing  army.  On  the  other  side  the  economic 
interest  of  the  south  in  slavery  was  so  great  it  commanded 
her  to  sacrifice  all  the  advantages  of  union  to  preserve 
slavery,  if  that  should  be  necessary.  Each  side  feels 
deeply  and  more  and  more  angrily  that  the  other  is 
seeking  to  rob  it  of  the  means  of  production  and  sub 
sistence  —  the  property  to  which  of  all  it  believes  its 
title  most  indefeasible.  It  required  some  years  to  bring 
affairs  to  this  point ;  but  it  was  accomplished  at  last ; 
and  the  north  was  ready  for  the  root-and-branch  aboli 
tionist  and  the  south  for  the  fire-eater.  Of  course  all 
this  effect  of  oppugnant  economical  interests  is  under 
the  guidance  of  the  directors  of  evolution,  who  generally 
have  their  human  servants  to  masquerade  as  characters 
widely  different  from  the  true.  When  these  servants 
put  on  high  airs  as  if  they  were  doing  their  own  will 
and  not  that  of  their  masters,  how  the  directors  must 
smile.  They  have  guaranteed  animal  reproduction  from 
one  generation  to  another  by  the  impulsion  of  a  supreme 
momentary  pleasure,  as  Lucretius  most  philosophically 
recognizes  in  his  dux  vit<z  dia  voluptas.  The  passion 
of  anger  is  the  converse  of  that  of  love.  When  consent 
cannot  settle  some  great  controversy  that  must  be  set 
tled,  the  passion  of  anger  is  so  greatly  excited  by  the 
instigation  of  the  directors  that  the  disputants  leave  ar 
guments  and  come  to  blows.  In  the  ripeness  of  time 
the  Ransy  Sniffleses  x  come  forth.  They  say  and  do 

1  Ransy  Sniffles  is  a  character  in  Georgia  Scenes,  who  has  long  been 
a  proverb  in  the  south  for  one  who  habitually  provokes  personal  encoun 
ters  among  his  neighbors. 


88  The  Brothers'  War 

everything  possible  to  bring  on  the  impending  mortal 
combat.  They  never  grasp  the  essence  of  the  conten 
tion,  for  it  is  their  mission  to  arouse  feeling,  passion, 
anger.  They  are  resistlessly  —  most  conscientiously 
and  honestly  —  impelled  to  make  the  other  side  appear 
detestable  and  insultingly  offensive  in  heinous  wrong 
doing.  The  most  zealous  and  the  most  influential  of 
the  root-and-branch  abolitionists  were  young  when  they 
vaulted  into  the  arena.  Garrison  was  twenty-six  when 
he  started  the  "Liberator"  in  1831,  Wendell  Phillips 
was  some  six  years  younger  than  Garrison,  and  he  was 
about  twenty-six  when  he  made  his  debut  with  a  power 
ful  impromptu  in  Boston,  in  1837.  Whittier  was  two 
years  younger  than  Garrison,  and  he  was  early  a 
co-worker  in  the  "  Liberator."  It  is  demonstrated  by 
everything  they  said  that  they  were  entirely  ignorant 
of  the  south  and  its  people,  of  the  average  condition  of 
the  slave  in  the  south,  and  especially  of  the  negro's 
grade  of  humanity.  They  never  studied  and  investi 
gated  facts  diligently  and  impartially,  desiring  only  to 
ascertain  the  truth.  They  assumed  the  facts  to  be  as  it 
suited  their  purposes,  given  them  by  the  directors,  of 
exciting  hatred  of  their  opponents,  —  and  it  added 
greatly  to  their  efficiency  that  they  fully  believed  their 
assumptions.  Knowing  really  nothing  of  the  negro 
except  that  he  was  a  man,  it  was  natural  for  them  to 
believe,  as  they  did,  that  the  typical,  average  negro 
slave  of  the  south  was  in  all  the  essentials  of  good 
citizenship  just  such  a  human  being  as  the  typical, 
average  white.  If  they  did  not  go  quite  so  far,  they 
surely  claimed  for  him  something  so  near  to  it  that 
it  is  practically  the  same.  We  shall,  as  suggested 
above,  treat  this  pernicious  error  more  fully  in  later 
chapters. 

The  root-and-branch  abolitionists  have  claimed  ever 


Root-and-Branch  Abolitionists  89 

since  the  emancipation  proclamation  became  effective 
that  the  overthrow  of  slavery  was  brought  about  by 
them;  and  thousands  upon  thousands  believing  it  sing 
them  hosannas.  But  it  is  an  undeniable  fact  that  the 
superior  power  of  free  labor  in  its  irreconcilable  conflict 
with  slavery  was  bound  to  do  in  America  what  it  had 
done  everywhere  else.  And  without  the  abolitionist  at 
all  the  days  of  slavery  were  numbered,  and  they  were 
few  even  if  there  had  been  no  secession,  and  very  few 
if  secession  had  triumphed.  For  free  labor  — -  its  fell  and 
implacable  foe  —  was  on  the  outside  steadily  and  surely 
encircling  it  with  a  wall  that  hemmed  it  from  the  exten 
sion  that  was  a  condition  of  its  life;  and  within  its  ring 
fence  necessarily  it  was  rapidly  exhausting  all  of  its 
resources.  It  was  the  mighty  counteraction  of  free 
labor  that  crushed  slavery.  The  root-and-branch  aboli 
tionist  thrown  up  by  this  movement  which  had  set 
forward  irresistibly,  long  before  he  was  ever  heard  of, 
and  who  believed  that  he  started  it  and  was  guiding  it, 
strikingly  examples  the  proverb 

"  Er  denkt  zu  schieben  und  ist  geschoben." 

I  believe  that  future  history  will  give  him  credit  only 
for  having  a  little  hastened  forward  the  inevitable. 

Another  abolition  misstatement  ought  to  be  cor 
rected.  Sumner  fulminated  against  what  he  called  the 
oligarchs  of  slavery.  And  it  was  common  at  the  north 
to  speak  of  southern  aristocracy  and  southern  aristo 
cratic  institutions.  Of  course  the  slaves  had  no  political 
privileges,  no  more  than  they  had  in  Athens,  which  has 
always  been  deemed  the  most  genuine  republic  ever 
known.  There  was  in  the  old  south  no  oligarch,  or 
anything  like  him,  unless  you  choose  to  call  such  a 
man  as  Calhoun  an  oligarch,  whose  influence  over  his 
State  was  entirely  from  the  good  opinion  and  unexam- 


90  The  Brothers'  War 

pled  confidence  of  the  free  citizens  of  all  classes,  which 
he  had  won.  There  was  no  aristocracy,  except  such  a 
natural  one  as  can  be  found  in  every  one  of  our  States, 
as  is  illustrated  by  the  Adamses  in  Massachusetts,  the 
Lees  in  Virginia,  and  the  Cobbs  in  Georgia.  In  those 
days  property  was  much  more  equally  distributed  than 
now ;  and  it  was  easy  for  the  energetic  and  saving  poor 
young  man,  of  the  humblest  origin,  to  make  his  way  up. 
In  all  my  day  there  was  universal  suffrage,  and  it  was 
political  death  to  propose  any  modification.  I  ex 
plained  nearly  thirty  years  ago  how  southern  conditions 
prevented  the  development  of  anything  like  the  benefi 
cent  New  England  town-meeting  system.1  But  for  all  of 
that  the  entire  spirit  of  southern  society  was  democratic 
in  the  extreme,  far  more  so  than  it  is  now  with  the 
nominating  machinery  everywhere  in  the  south  except 
South  Carolina,  controlled  by  corporation  oligarchs. 
When  the  root-and-branch  abolitionist  inveighed  against 
oligarchy  and  aristocracy,  and  aristocratic  institutions 
in  the  south,  he  was  just  as  mistaken  as  he  was  in  de 
nouncing  what  he  asserted  to  be  the  guilt  in  morals  of 
slaveholding. 

The  more  I  study  the  abolitionists  whom  I  distin 
guish  as  root-and-branch,  the  more  completely  self-de 
ceived  as  to  facts,  the  wilder  and  more  emotional  I  find 
them  to  be.  I  have  just  mentioned  some  of  their  mis 
representations  ;  and  in  later  chapters  I  shall  dwell  upon 
their  cardinal  mistake  as  to  the  place  of  the  negro  in  the 
human  scale.  I  have  not  sufficient  space  for  more  of 
these  things.  I  will  give  just  one  example  of  their  wild- 
ness.  They  put  in  circulation  that  Toombs  had  said 
he  expected  some  day  to  call  the  roll  of  his  slaves  at  the 
foot  of  Bunker  Hill  monument,  —  a  slander  which  they 
persisted  in  renewing  after  he  had  solemnly  and  publicly 

1  See  infra,  p.  436. 


Root-and-Branch  Abolitionists          91 

denied  it.1  In  their  excited  imaginations  they  were 
sure  that  the  south  was  cherishing  a  scheme  by  which, 
under  the  help  of  the  court  that  made  the  Dred  Scott 
decision,  slavery  was  to  be  established  and  protected  by 
law  everywhere  in  the  north.  The  only  parallel  I  can 
think  of  to  this  utterly  groundless  panic  is  that  of  some 
poor  souls  in  the  Confederate  ranks  in  front  of  Rich 
mond  in  1862,  who,  when  they  learned  that  Jackson 
had  got  in  the  enemy's  rear,  expressed  lively  fears  that 
he  was  going  to  drive  McClellan's  army  over  them. 

And  the  fire-eaters,  —  how  they  got  important  facts 
wrong !  They  habitually  said  that  the  northern  masses 
were  too  untruthful  and  dishonest  for  us  of  the  south  to 
stay  in  the  partnership  without  disgrace  and  loss  of  self- 
respect.  I  heard  of  one  who  was  wont  gravely  to  assert 
that  prostitutes  and  ice  were  all  that  the  south  was  de 
pendent  upon  the  north  for;  and  these  were  only  lux 
uries  which  it  was  better  to  do  without  Perhaps  the 
height  of  falsification  by  the  hotspurs  was  the  assertion, 
made  everywhere  again  and  again,  that  northerners 
were  such  cowards  that,  even  if  they  were  spurred  into  a 
war  in  defence  of  the  union,  any  one  average  south 
erner  would  prove  an  overmatch  for  any  five  of  them. 

It  is  now  high  time  that  each  section  turn  resolutely 
away  from  these  fanatics,  and  the  literature  which  they 
have  made  or  informed,  to  seek  right  instruction  as  to 
slavery,  the  struggle  over  it,  the  characters  of  the 
masses  on  each  side  and  of  their  leaders,  and  all  other 
belonging  details,  in  the  real  facts.  Especially  must  we 
understand  the  internecine  duel  between  free  labor  and 
slavery,  and  what  was  the  purpose  of  the  directors  of 
evolution  placing  the  fanatical  abolitionist  and  the  fire- 
eater  upon  the  stage.  When  we  grasp  that  purpose 

1  See  what  he  said  February  20,  1860,  in  the  United  States  senate,  to 
Clark,  repeating  the  charge,  as  reported  in  the  "  Globe." 


92  The  Brothers'  War 

clearly,  how  pretentious  do  we  understand  their  claims 
and  self-laudation  to  be,  and  how  clearly  we  see  that 
they  are  like  the  fly  on  the  cart-wheel  that  became  so 
vain  of  the  great  dust  it  was  raising,  and  also  like  the 
little  fice  egging  on  the  big  dogs  to  do  their  fighting.  I 
have  still  vivid  recollections  of  hearing  in  amicable  in 
terviews  of  hostile  pickets  these  characters  denounced 
for  keeping  out  of  the  war  which,  as  was  then  said,  they 
had  caused,  —  the  fanatical  abolitionists  denounced  by 
the  federals,  the  fire-eaters,  original  secessionists,  the 
blue  cockade  wearers,  by  the  confederates. 


CHAPTER  VII 

CALHOUN 

ATER  John  Caldwell  Calhoun,  who  was  born 
March  18,  1782,  the  birth-year  of  Webster,  had 
become  large  enough  to  go  to  the  field,  the 
most  of  his  time  until  he  was  eighteen  was  spent  in 
work  on  the  plantation.  His  father  had  never  had  but 
six  months'  schooling.  There  were  no  schools  in  that 
region  except  a  few  "  old  field  "  ones,  where  the  three 
R's  only  were  taught.  To  one  of  these  John  went  for  a 
few  months.  The  boy  learned  to  read,  and  manifestly  he 
had  acquired  some  habit  of  reading.  In  his  thirteenth 
year  he  was  sent  to  school  to  his  brother-in-law,  Moses 
Waddell,  who  was  an  unusually  good  teacher.  He 
found  a  circulating  library  in  the  house.  This  was 
his  first  access  to  books.  He  read  old  Rollin,  and 
he  probably  moused  about  in  Robertson's  History  of 
America  and  Life  of  Charles  V,  and  Voltaire's  Charles 
XII.  Having  laid  Rollin  aside,  he  assailed  Locke's 
famous  Essay;  but  when  he  got  to  the  chapter  on 
Infinity  his  health  had  become  bad,  doubtless  due  to 
his  change  from  active  to  sedentary  habits  and  from 
physical  to  mental  activity.  So  he  was  taken  back  to 
his  work  at  home.  His  father  had  died  in  the  mean 
while,  and  his  mother,  who  had  great  business  talent, 
taught  him,  as  we  are  told,  "  how  to  administer  the 
affairs  of  a  plantation."  1  It  will  appear  in  the  sequel 

1  W.  Pinkney  Starke,   Account  of   Calhoun's  Early  Life,   Calhoun 
Correspondence,  69. 


94  The  Brothers'  War 

that  he  was  superbly  trained.1  When  he  attained  the 
age  of  eighteen  the  family  had  become  convinced  that 
he  ought  to  be  got  ready  for  a  profession.  John,  know 
ing  himself  to  be  the  mainstay  of  his  mother,  and  having 
resolved  to  be  a  planter,  at  first  would  not  hear  to  this. 
But  the  family  persisted.  This  doubtless  influenced  him 
to  turn  the  subject  carefully  over  in  his  mind ;  and  the 
decision  which  he  made  showed  an  understanding  of  his 
own  peculiar  talents  and  needs,  and  also  a  prescience  of 
his  future  which,  when  his  youth,  small  opportunity  of 
observation,  and  want  of  schooling  are  remembered,  are 
very  wonderful.  He  gave  this  family,  who  were  not  well- 
to-do,  to  understand  he  would  not  accept  a  limited  and 
makeshift  education.  Naturally  they  asked  what  sort 
did  he  mean,  and  he  answered,  "  The  best  school,  col 
lege,  and  legal  education  to  be  had  in  the  United 
States." 2  Then  they  asked,  How  long  did  he  think 
all  this  would  take,  and  he  promptly  answered  seven 
years.  To  the  average  reader  it  seems  that  the  time 
necessary  to  carry  this  unschooled  lad  through  the 
course  he  proposed  had  been  egregiously  underesti 
mated  by  him ;  but  to  the  family,  as  they  thought  of 
the  appertaining  annual  expenses,  it  must  have  looked 
very  long.  They  had  to  give  in.  That  irrefragable  in 
fluence  over  his  people  which  showed  itself  as  soon  as 
he  came  upon  the  public  stage  begins  here.  Some  one 
long  afterwards  said  of  him,  that  if  he  could  but  talk 
with  every  man  he  would  always  have  the  whole  United 
States  on  his  side.  It  is  more  than  probable  that  in  the 
five  years  after  he  had  left  Waddell's  school  he  had,  in 

1  The  inscription  on  her  tombstone  states — so  I  have  been  informed 
—  that  she  died  in  May,  1802.     In  a  short  while  afterwards  he  put  the 
mother  of  his  future  wife  in  her  place  and  bestowed  on  her  the  highest 
filial  love. 

2  W.  Pinkney   Starke,  Account  of  Calhoun's  Early  Life._  Calhoun 
Correspondence,  78. 


Calhoun  95 

plantation  management  and  other  interests  of  the  family, 
convinced  them  that  he  always  acted  or  advised  wisely. 
Another  comment  is  in  place  here.  Study  of  the  record 
of  his  early  life  convinces  you  that  very  soon  after,  if 
not  before,  the  commencement  of  his  legal  studies,  he 
decided  to  make  law  only  a  stepping-stone  by  which  to 
enter  public  life  and  also  acquire  the  means  to  plant.  I 
cannot  help  inferring  that  this  was  —  somewhat  vaguely 
it  may  be  —  his  intention  already  formed  when  he  dic 
tated  terms  to  the  family  as  just  told.  It  is  not  at  all 
impossible  that  to  him  who  afterwards  astonished  the 
world  by  the  sureness  of  his  prophecy  there  had  even 
then  been  revealed  the  career  awaiting;  and  so  he  re 
solved  to  get  ready  for  college  in  two  years,  and  pass 
the  rest  of  the  seven  where,  besides  competent  instruc 
tors,  he  would  have  cultivated  society,  libraries,  and  the 
best  of  opportunities  to  qualify  himself  for  public  life. 
Be  our  conjecture  true  or  not,  in  two  years  after  he  had 
opened  his  Latin  grammar  he  entered  the  junior  class 
at  Yale,  and  two  years  later  he  graduated  with  credit. 
After  reading  law  in  an  office  he  took  a  year's  course  at 
the  Litchfield  law  school  in  Connecticut,  and  then  he 
went  into  an  office  again  for  a  while.  Some  time  in 
June,  1807,  he  hung  out  his  shingle  at  Abbeville  Court 
house,  as  it  was  called  up  to  the  time  of  reconstruction. 
A  few  days  afterwards  in  that  month  occurred  the  attack 
on  the  Chesapeake,  and  when  the  news  came  it  caused 
a  public  meeting  in  the  town.  Some  good  report  of 
him  must  have  been  bruited  about  in  the  community  in 
advance  of  his  coming.  It  is  almost  certain  that  his 
education  had  greatly  developed  those  powers  of  con 
versation  mentioned  above,  and  that  many  listeners  had 
greatly  approved  his  views  of  the  outrage,  and  the  patri 
otic  indignation  he  uttered  over  it.  It  is  not  stretching 
probability  too  far  to  assert  that,  young  as  he  was,  he 


96  The   Brothers'  War 

was  by  far  the  ablest  man  that  could  be  found  in  the 
locality  to  advise  upon  the  burning  question  which  had 
arisen  so  suddenly.  He  was  selected  to  draft  appro 
priate  resolutions  and  present  them.  There  is  no  record 
of  these  or  of  his  speech.  But  as  we  know  that  the 
resolutions  carried,  and  that  tradition  still  reports  ad 
miringly  of  the  speech,  we  may  be  sure  that  his  per 
formance  in  both  was  extraordinarily  good.  Although 
there  had  been  a  strong  popular  prejudice  in  the  county 
—  or  district,  as  it  was  then  called  —  against  lawyer  rep 
resentatives,  October  13,  1807,  less  than  four  months 
after  the  meeting  just  described,  he  was  elected  to  the 
legislature  at  the  head  of  the  ticket. 

In  that  day  presidential  electors  were  appointed  by 
the  State  legislatures.  Shortly  after  the  session  of  this 
legislature  to  which  Calhoun  had  been  elected  opened, 
there  was  an  informal  meeting  of  the  republican  members 
to  make  nominations  for  president  and  vice-president. 
The  first  was  unanimously  given  to  Madison.  When  the 
other  was  up,  Calhoun  declared  his  conviction  that  there 
was  soon  to  be  war  with  England.  At  such  a  time  there 
should  be  no  dissension  in  the  party.  He  gave  strong 
reasons  why  George  Clinton  should  not  be  nominated, 
as  had  been  proposed  ;  and  he  suggested  John  Lang- 
don  of  New  Hampshire  as  the  proper  man.  The  thor 
ough  acquaintance  with  the  grave  situation  which  he 
manifested,  the  due  respect  he  showed  Clinton  while 
opposing  his  nomination,  and  the  ability  with  which 
he  discussed  the  question,  advanced  him  at  once  to  a 
place  among  the  most  distinguished  members  of  the 
legislature. 

"  Several  important  measures  were  originated  by  Mr. 
Calhoun  while  in  the  legislature  which  have  become 
a  permanent  portion  of  the  legislation  of  the  State, 
and  he  soon  acquired  an  extensive  practice  at  the 


Calhoun  97 

bar."  1  He  kept  in  the  very  midst  of  the  political  swim. 
His  reputation  as  an  honest,  true,  and  able  adviser  had 
become  so  great  and  influential  that  the  people,  in  their 
warm  approval  of  the  strong  measures  he  advocated  as 
preparation  for  the  threatened  war,  pushed  him  out  as 
their  candidate  for  congress  and  elected  him  most  tri 
umphantly  in  October,  1810.  The  first  session  of  this, 
the  twelfth  congress,  commenced  November  4,  1811. 
Clay,  then  speaker  of  the  house,  evidently  expecting 
much  of  him,  gave  him  the  second  place  in  the  com 
mittee  on  foreign  relations.  There  came  before  the 
house  a  measure  contemplating  an  increase  of  the  army 
in  view  of  the  war  which  appeared  to  many  to  be  nearer 
than  ever.  John  Randolph  was  against  it.  In  March, 
J799>  a  Year  before  Calhoun  started  to  school,  Ran 
dolph,  then  not  twenty-six  years  old,  had  fearlessly  met 
the  great  Patrick  Henry  in  stump  discussion,  and  had, 
in  the  opinion  of  his  auditors,  got  the  better  of  it.  He 
was  elected  to  congress  in  this  year.  Steadily  since 
then  he  had  developed,  until  he  was  now  one  of  the 
most  prominent  figures  upon  the  national  stage.  While 
his  powers  of  discussion  of  a  subject  were  great,  the 
power  that  especially  characterized  him  was  that  of  non 
plussing  his  antagonist  with  a  snub  or  a  sarcasm.  Ran 
dolph  made  an  earnest  speech.  Calhoun  replied.  It 
is  not  enough  to  say  of  this  speech  that  it  evinces  full 
mastery  of  the  subject.  It  presents  every  important 
view  most  effectively,  satisfactorily  answering  every 
thing  which  had  been  said  on  the  other  side.  And 
it  is  especially  happy  in  the  wise  use  made  at  each 
proper  place  of  the  commands  of  morality  and  patri 
otism. 

Mr.  Pinkney  has  instructively  and  entertainingly  illus- 

1  Starke's  Account  of  Calhoun's  Early  Life,  Calhoun  Correspond 
ence,  87. 

7 


98  The  Brothers'  War 

trated  this  speech  by  his  excerpts.1  To  them  I  here 
add  another,  which  I  would  have  you  consider,  —  Ran 
dolph  had  strenuously  insisted  that  the  cause  of  this 
war,  said  by  the  other  side  to  be  impending,  should  first 
be  defined ;  and  until  this  plain  duty  was  done  there 
should  be  no  preparation.  To  this  Calhoun  said : 

"  The  single  instance  alluded  to,  the  endeavor  of  Mr.  Fox  to 
compel  Mr.  Pitt  to  define  the  object  of  the  war  against  France, 
will  not  support  the  gentleman  from  Virginia  in  his  position. 
That  was  an  extraordinary  war  for  an  extraordinary  purpose. 
It  was  not  for  conquest,  or  for  redress  of  injury,  but  to  impose 
a  government  on  France  which  she  refused  to  receive  —  an  ob 
ject  so  detestable  that  an  avowal  dared  not  be  made." 

This  is  a  thrust  which  Randolph  especially  could 
appreciate. 

The  more  I  examine  this  first  speech  of  a  very  young 
member  of  congress  upon  a  question  of  such  transcend 
ent  importance  to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  the 
more  sound,  able,  complete,  — to  sum  up  in  one  word, — 
the  more  statesmanly  it  appears.  I  am  confident  that 
whoever  will  weigh  it  carefully  will  agree  with  me.  He 
will  not  be  surprised  to  learn  that  it  carried  the  house 
decisively.  Even  in  Randolph's  own  State  it  drew  great 
praise.  But  its  fame  went  abroad  everywhere,  and  it 
was  revealed  to  America  that  she  had  found  among  her 
public  men  another  giant. 

In  the  year  1800  Calhoun  was  a  lad  of  eighteen,  with 
out  even  a  complete  common  school  education.  Rep 
resent  to  yourself  clearly  what  he  had  accomplished  in 
the  interval  from  the  year  last  mentioned  to  Decem 
ber  12,  1811,  when,  not  yet  thirty,  he  made  the  speech 
we  have  just  considered.  If  any  public  man  of  America, 
burdened  with  such  disadvantages,  has  surpassed,  or 

1  Life  of  John  C.  Calhoun.  By  Gutasvus  M.  Pinkney,of  the  Charles 
ton,  S.  C.,  Bar,  Charleston,  S.  C.,  1903. 


Calhoun  99 

even  equalled,  this  meteoric  stride,  I  do  not  now  recall 
him.  I  am  not  emphasizing  especially  that  he  got  to 
congress  in  such  a  short  while.  What  I  do  especially 
emphasize  is  that  he  so  early  won  place  as  an  eminent 
statesman.  In  these  eleven  years  he  lost  no  time  at  all 
in  idleness,  or  probation,  or  waiting. 

January  8,  1811,  some  three  months  after  his  election 
to  congress,  he  married  his  cousin,  Floride  Calhoun  — 
not  a  first  cousin,  but  a  daughter  of  a  first  cousin.  His 
letters  of  courtship,  not  to  her,  but,  in  the  old  style,  to 
her  mother;  his  only  letter  to  her,  written  shortly  be 
fore  the  marriage ;  and  other  letters  from  and  to  him 
afterwards,  all  of  which  you  can  read  in  the  Corre 
spondence,  —  show  him  to  be  such  a  lover,  father,  brother, 
son-in-law,  brother-in-law,  grandfather,  etc.,  as  every 
body  wants.  Some  South  Carolinian,  adequately  gifted, 
ought  to  tell  befittingly  the  tale  of  Calhoun's  beautiful 
domestic  life. 

I  must  now  mention  some  other  facts  which  will  fur 
ther  enlighten  you  as  to  the  man. 

I  was  fourteen  when  Calhoun  died.  For  four  or  five 
years  before,  and  afterwards  until  I  went  to  the  brothers' 
war,  I  heard  much  of  Calhoun  from  relatives  in  Abbe 
ville  county  and  the  Court  House.  I  still  recall  most 
vividly  what  a  paternal  uncle  habitually  said  of  the 
brightness  and  unexampled  impressiveness  of  Calhoun's 
eyes,  and  the  charm  and  instructiveness  of  his  conver 
sation.  In  Georgia  there  was  not  a  public  man  whose 
course  in  politics  commended  itself  to  all  of  my  acquaint 
ances.  I  had  become  accustomed  to  hearing  much  dis 
paragement  of  Toombs  and  of  Stephens,  with  whom  I  was 
most  familiar.  But  my  South  Carolina  relatives,  and 
every  man  or  woman  of  that  State  whose  talk  I  listened 
to ;  every  boy  or  girl  with  whom  I  talked  myself,  yea, 
all  of  the  negroes,  —  always  warmly  maintained  the 


ioo  The  Brothers'  War 

rightfulness  of  Calhoun's  politics,  national  or  State.  I 
thought  it  a  good  hit  when  a  Georgia  aunt  of  mine 
dubbed  the  Palmetto  State  "  The  Kingdom  of  Cal 
houn,"  and  Abbeville  Court  House  "  its  capital."  This 
universal  political  worship  was  a  great  surprise  to  me. 
But  there  was  a  still  greater  one  to  come.  That  was, 
that  according  to  all  accounts,  and  without  any  contra 
diction,  in  spite  of  his  living  away  from  home  the  most 
of  his  time,  he  yet  gave  his  planting  interests  and  all 
else  appertaining  the  very  best  management,  and  with 
such  unvarying  financial  success  it  would  be  unkind  to 
compare  Webster's  money-wasting  and  amateur  farming 
at  Marshfield.  In  this  community,  where  he  seemed  to 
be  known  as  well  as  he  was  before  he  removed  to  Fort 
Hill,  some  sixty  miles  distant,  in  1825,  he  had  become  a 
far  greater  authority  in  business  than  he  had  even  at 
tained  in  politics.  His  acquaintances  all  sought  his 
advice,  which  they  followed  when  they  got  it ;  thus 
making  this  busiest  of  public  servants  their  agricultural 
oracle. 

The  reader  will  find  in  Starke's  memoir  and  the  Cor 
respondence  ample  proofs  of  that  diligent  attention  of 
Calhoun  to  his  home  affairs  which  made  him  the  excep 
tionally  successful  planter  that  he  was.  Starke  hap 
pily  calls  him  "  the  great  farmer-statesman  of  our 
country."  l 

Now  let  us  see  where  he  made  his  mark  as  an  able 
business  man  in  another  place.  He  was  Monroe's  sec 
retary  of  war  from  1817  to  1825.  When  he  entered 
the  office  he  found  something  like  $50,000,000  of  un 
settled  accounts  outstanding,  and  jumble  in  every  branch 
of  the  service.  He  soon  brought  down  the  accounts  to 
a  few  millions.  And  he  reduced  the  annual  expendi 
ture  of  four  to  two  and  a  half  millions,  "  without  sub- 
1  Calhoun  Correspondence,  88. 


Calhoun  ioi 

tracting  a  single  comfort  from  either  officer  or  soldier," 
as  he  says  with  becoming  pride.  He  established  it,  that 
the  head  of  every  subordinate  department  be  respon 
sible  for  its  disbursements.  His  economy  was  not  par 
simonious.  He  was  especially  popular  at  West  Point, 
for  which  he  did  great  things,  and  with  the  officers  and 
men  of  the  army. 

And  if  one  chose  to  look  through  the  belonging  parts 
of  the  Correspondence  and  the  other  accessible  perti 
nent  records,  he  will  find  ample  proofs  that  he  was  ever 
alert  to  all  the  duties  of  his  office,  performing  each  one, 
whether  important  or  trivial,  with  the  height  of  skill  and 
diligence. 

Consider',  as  to  his  career  in  the  war  department,  this 
language  of  one  of  the  most  inveterate  of  his  disparagers : 

"  Many  of  his  friends  and  admirers  had  with  regret  seen  him 
abandon  his  seat  in  the  legislative  hall  for  a  place  in  the  presi 
dent's  council.  They  apprehended  that  he  would,  to  a  great 
extent,  lose  the  renown  which  he  had  gained  as  a  member  of 
congress,  for  they  thought  that  the  didactic  turn  of  his  mind 
rendered  him  unfit  to  become  a  successful  administrator.  He 
undeceived  them  in  a  manner  which  astonished  even  those  who 
had  not  shared  these  apprehensions.  The  department  of  war 
was  in  a  state  of  really  astounding  confusion  when  he  assumed 
charge  of  it.  Into  this  chaos  he  soon  brought  order,  and  the 
whole  service  of  the  department  received  an  organization  so 
simple  and  at  the  same  time  so  efficient  that  it  has,  in  the  main, 
been  adhered  to  by  all  his  successors,  and  proved  itself  capable 
of  standing  even  the  test  of  the  civil  war."  * 

Now  let  us  glance  at  his  magnificent  success  in  win 
ning  for  the  United  States  the  vast  territory  of  Texas 
and  Oregon.  The  latter  had  long  been  in  dispute 
between  us  and  England.  Ever  since  1818  it  had  been 
jointly  occupied  under  agreement.  We  wanted  all  of 

1  Von  Hoist,  John  C.  Calhoun,  41. 


102  The  Brothers'  Wai- 

it;  and  of  course  as  our  settlements  in  the  west  ap 
proached  nearer  and  nearer,  our  desire  for  it  mounted. 
And  England  wanted  all  of  it  too.  Soon  after  Texas 
achieved  her  independence  she  applied  for  admission 
into  our  union,  but  as  the  settlers  had  carried  slavery 
with  them  free-soil  opposition  kept  her  out.  Texas  got 
in  debt,  and  the  only  thing  for  her  to  do  was  to  tie  to 
some  great  power  willing  to  receive  her.  England,  see 
ing  her  opportunity,  was  trying  to  propitiate  Mexico  in 
order,  with  the  favor  of  the  latter,  to  get  Texas  for  her 
self.  Of  course  the  south  wanted  Texas  to  come  in,  but 
the  free-soilers  did  not.  And  the  north  wanted  Oregon ; 
and  although  its  soil  and  climate  did  not  admit  of  slavery, 
the  south  was  against  its  acquisition  unless  the  conces 
sion  be  made  that  it  be  permitted  to  slavery  to  occupy 
all  the  suitable  soil  of  the  Territories.  As  early  as  1843 
Calhoun,  with  his  piercing  vision,  saw  the  situation 
clearly.  If  the  dispute  as  to  Oregon  provoked  war, 
England  could  throw  troops  thither  from  China  by  a 
much  shorter  route  than  ours,  the  latter  going  as  it  did 
from  the  States  on  the  Atlantic  coast  around  Cape 
Horn.  That  would  be  bad  enough  for  us.  But  sup 
pose  England  gets  Texas.  A  hostile  power,  with  a 
vast  empire  of  land,  will  spring  up  under  the  very  nose 
of  the  States,  where  our  adversary  will  acquire  a  base  of 
operations  in  the  highest  degree  unfavorable  to  us. 
Then  England  will  rise  in  her  demands  as  to  Oregon, 
and  perhaps  win  all  of  it  from  us.  In  an  affair  of  inter 
dependent  contingencies  it  is  of  the  first  importance  to 
do  the  right  thing  instead  of  the  wrong  thing  first. 
Texas  was  ripe,  Oregon  was  not.  Calhoun  saw  the  first 
thing  to  do  was  to  annex  Texas.  For  when  England 
cannot  secure  that  base  of  operations  in  Texas  she  will 
shrink  from  making  Oregon  a  cause  of  war,  and  while 
she  is  hesitating,  Oregon  —  which  is  near  to  us  and  far 


Calhoun  103 

from  her  —  is  steadily  filling  with  population  in  which 
settlers  from  the  United  States  more  and  more  prepon 
derate  ;  and  at  the  same  time  the  populous  States  are 
fast  approaching.  After  a  while  the  inhabitants  will  all 
practically  be  on  our  side,  and  they  will  have  hosts  of 
allies  to  the  eastward  in  supporting  distance,  which 
would  give  us  an  invincible  advantage  in  case  war  for 
Oregon  does  come.  This  is  what  Calhoun  styled  "  mas 
terly  inactivity"  on  our  part,  and  which,  had  it  been 
fully  carried  out  as  he  advised,  Oregon  would  now 
extend  much  further  north  than  it  does.  To  sum  up  in 
a  line,  he  saw  that  activity  as  to  Texas  and  inactivity  as 
to  Oregon  was  each  masterly. 

But  the  hotheads  of  the  south  and  the  fanatical  wing 
of  the  anti-slavery  men  at  the  north  rose  up,  obstructing 
his  way  like  mountains.  At  the  same  time  there  was 
lack  of  vision  in  even  the  leaders  of  each  section  who 
could  rise  to  patriotism  above  prejudice.  Polk  blun 
dered  in  not  continuing  Calhoun  as  secretary  of  State, 
in  which  place  he  had  made  so  good  a  beginning  that 
it  soon  accomplished  the  annexation  of  Texas.  In  his 
inaugural  Polk  asserted  that  our  title  to  Oregon  was 
good,  and  to  be  maintained  by  arms  if  need  be;  and  he 
went  further  away  from  "  masterly  inactivity "  in  his 
first  annual  message.  He  evoked  great  popular  excite 
ment,  and  "  Fifty-four  forty  or  fight !  "  and  "  All  of  Ore 
gon  or  none !  "  came  forth  in  passionate  ejaculations  in 
every  corner  of  the  land.  Calhoun  had  been  called 
from  retirement  to  take  Texas  and  Oregon  in  hand,  and 
when  Polk  made  a  new  secretary  he  went  back  into  the 
retirement  for  which  he  greatly  longed.  The  record 
shows  that  the  best  men  of  all  parties,  north  and  south, 
felt  that  as  Tyler's  secretary  he  was  the  man  of  all  to 
manage  the  two  matters  so  vitally  important  to  the 
United  States,  and  they  deeply  regretted  that  the  place 


104  The  Brothers'  War 

was  not  continued  to  him  by  Polk.  And  now  instead  of 
the  happy  settlement  they  had  been  sure  the  master 
would  effect,  the  country  was  face  to  face  with  a  war 
that  portended  direful  disaster  to  each  section.  The 
eyes  of  patriots  turned  to  Calhoun  again;  and  as  he 
cannot  be  secretary,  he  must  be  in  the  senate.  And  a 
way  being  made,  he  was  seated  in  due  time.  It  needs 
not  to  go  into  much  detail.  The  situation  had  changed 
greatly.  The  especial  thing  to  do  now  was  to  avoid 
war.  And  as  a  resolution  to  terminate  the  joint  occupa 
tion  had  been  passed  by  congress,  and  as  the  ire  of 
Great  Britain  had  been  greatly  aroused,  there  must  at 
once  be  a  settlement  of  the  Oregon  controversy.  And 
so  the  controversy  was  compromised  and  war  averted, 
this  good  result  being  mainly  due  to  the  efforts  of  Cal 
houn.  Even  Von  Hoist  calls  his  speech  of  March  16, 
1846,  great.  It  will  live  forever.  It  is  paying  it  gross 
disrespect  to  treat  it  as  mere  oratory,  even  if  one  concede 
to  it  the  highest  eloquence.  It  voices  the  ripest  wisdom 
of  the  ablest  practical  statesman  dealing  with  a  most 
momentous  public  affair,  in  a  crisis  delicate  and  perilous 
in  the  extreme.  The  vindication  of  the  true  course  of 
action  is  majestic.  But  to  my  mind  the  great  achieve 
ment  of  the  speech  is  his  sublime  philanthropic  depre 
cation  of  war  between  England  and  America.  When 
the  papers  told  us  at  the  outbreak  of  our  war  with  Spain 
that  all  the  British  subjects  on  the  warships  of  the  latter 
had  thrown  up  their  places,  it  seemed  to  me  that  nothing 
else  could  so  fairly  omen  co-operation  of  England  and 
America  in  the  near  future  to  democratize  and  make 
happy  the  world.  And  I  believe  that  that  inexpressi 
bly  sweet  token  of  Anglo-American  brotherhood  would 
have  been  postponed  at  least  a  half-century,  if  not  much 
longer,  had  it  not  been  for  that  speech. 

This    speech   likewise    discomfited    pro-slavery    and 


Calhoun  105 

anti-slavery  fanatics  alike,  and  won  the  hearty  approval 
of  the  wisest  and  best  of  every  part  of  the  country. 

Calhoun's  self-education  merits  the  closest  attention. 
Railroaded  through  school  and  college,  as  he  was,  his 
tuition  was  necessarily  defective  in  some  important 
particulars.  In  the  main  he  spelled  accurately,  but  the 
Correspondence  shows  that  he  wrote  "  sylable,"  "  in- 
disoluably,"  "  weat "  for  wet,  "  merical "  for  miracle, 
"  sperit,"  "  disappinted,"  "  abeated,"  etc.  It  is  doubtless 
to  be  regretted  that  he  did  not  have  larger  familiarity 
with  polite  literature.  Admitting  these  faults,  still  we 
must  know  he  had  been  uncommonly  studious  and 
thoughtful  to  win  his  degree  in  four  years  after  his  start 
to  school ;  but  his  systematic  study,  careful  observation, 
and  hard  thinking  really  commenced  with  his  entrance 
of  public  life,  and  were  kept  up  to  his  very  death. 
Note  this  pertinent  excerpt  from  Webster's  memorial 
speech,  in  which  I  italicize  a  passage  happily  describ 
ing  his  studies: 

"  I  have  not,  in  public  nor  private  life,  known  a  more  assid 
uous  person  in  the  discharge  of  his  appropriate  duties.  I  have 
known  no  man  who  wasted  less  of  life  in  what  is  called  rec 
reation,  or  employed  less  of  it  in  any  pursuits  not  connected 
with  the  immediate  discharge  of  his  duty.  He  seemed  to  have 
no  recreation  but  the  pleasure  of  conversation  with  his  friends. 
Out  of  the  chambers  of  congress,  he  was  either  devoting  himself 
to  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  pertaining  to  the  immediate  sub 
ject  of  the  duty  before  him,  or  else  he  was  indulging  in  those 
social  interviews  in  which  he  so  much  delighted.77 

From  his  first  speech  in  congress  to  the  end  of  his 
life  you  note  that  he  has  always  mastered  the  pertinent 
facts,  literature,  and  guiding  principles  of  whatever  he 
has  to  do  with,  whether  in  speech  or  action.  This  in 
dicates  continuous,  most  industrious,  and  most  wise 
self-instruction.  I  believe  it  was  Mr.  Parton  who  said 


io6  The  Brothers'  War 

that  Jefferson  was  the  best  educated  man  of  his  time. 
His  full  equipment  from  all  belonging  learning  and 
science  was  surpassed  only  by  the  versatility  with 
which  he  instantly  solved  all  new  questions.  But  Cal- 
houn's  was  more  of  a  special  training  than  Jefferson's. 
Having  for  some  years  learned  by  doing,  —  doing  after 
the  best  study  and  reflection,  consistent  with  due 
promptness,  that  he  could  give  each  thing  he  had  to 
do,  —  his  capital  of  knowledge  and  developed  faculty 
had  become  all-sufficient  Stephens,  a  profound  student 
of  both  Jefferson  and  Calhoun,  makes  this  comparison : 

u  Amongst  the  many  great  men  with  whom  he  associated, 
Mr.  Calhoun  was  by  far  the  most  philosophical  statesman  of 
them  all.  Indeed,  with  the  exception  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  it  may 
be  questioned  if  in  this  respect  the  United  States  has  ever  pro 
duced  his  superior."  1 

Government  —  that  is,  good  democratic  government 
—  he  studied  all  his  life  with  rare  devotion.  His  two 
special  works,2  and  the  parallel  parts  of  his  speeches, 
warmly  commended  by  such  a  thinker  and  friend  of 
democracy  as  John  Stuart  Mill,  are  sufficing  proof.  In 
all  the  long  tract  from  Plato  and  Aristotle  down  to  the 
popularization  of  direct  legislation,  which  commences 
with  the  publication  of  Mr.  Sullivan's  pamphlet  a  few 
years  ago,  there  is  to  be  found  nobody  who  has  pene 
trated  so  deeply  into  the  secrets  of  those  principles  by 
which  alone  true  democracy  must  be  maintained.  With 
what  clear  vision  does  he  read  us  lessons  from  the 
absolute  veto  of  the  Roman  tribunes ;  the  political 
history  of  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel ;  the  balance  of 
interests  in  the  English  constitution  and  our  own,  in 
tended  to  guarantee  what  he  calls  government  of  the 

1  War  between  the  States,  vol.  i.  341. 

2  A  Disquisition  on  Government,  and  A  Discourse  on  the  Constitu 
tion  and  Government  of  the  United  States,  Works,  vol.  i. 


Calhoun  107 

concurrent  majority.  His  illustration  from  the  confed 
eracy  of  Indian  Tribes  is  to  be  especially  emphasized  as 
demonstration  of  his  industry  in  collecting  his  materials 
and  of  his  great  insight.1 

I  must  give  still  another  example,  which  I  am  sure 
will  yet  benignly  enlighten  America. 

Ever  since  Adam  Smith  fell  into  my  hands  in  early 
manhood  I  have  had  a  strong  predilection  for  political 
economy.  My  conviction  during  the  brothers'  war  that 
proper  management  of  the  currency  of  the  confederacy 
was  indispensable  to  the  success  of  our  cause  initiated 
me  into  an  earnest  study  of  the  science  of  money. 
And  later  intense  interest  in  the  greenback  question, 
and  afterwards  the  silver  question,  added  to  the  im 
petus.  The  longer  I  observed  the  more  plainly  I  saw  a 
few  private  persons  controlling  the  coinage,  the  green 
backs,  and  the  national  bank  currency  of  purpose  to 
monopolize  government  credit,  and  also  fix  the  interest 
rate  and  the  price  level,  at  any  particular  time,  as  suited 
their  selfish  interests.  The  remedy  became  clear, — 
government  must  retake  and  fulfil  all  its  money  func 
tions.  Especially  must  it  keep  the  country  supplied 
with  a  volume  of  money  which  never  becomes  either 
redundant  or  contracted.  How  to  do  this  properly 
brought  up  the  question,  What  is  money?  What  is  it 
that  makes  a  sheep,  or  cow,  or  coin,  or  piece  of  paper, 
money?  For  the  true  answer  to  this  question  is  the 
very  beginning  and  foundation  of  all  monetary  science. 
I  took  up  Ricardo  again,  who,  with  a  solitary  exception 
mentioned  a  little  farther  on,  had,  from  the  time  I 
turned  into  him  during  my  study  of  the  confederate 
currency,  of  all  the  economists  by  profession,  showed  to 
me  the  best  understanding  of  the  real  nature  of  money; 
and  of  course  John  Stuart  Mill,  Jevons,  Carl  Marx,  and 

1  Works,  vol.  i.  (A  Disquisition  on  Government)  72. 


io8  The  Brothers'  War 

others  of  less  note,  were  examined.  The  result  con 
firmed  Ricardo  in  his  primacy ;  although  I  felt  that  the 
true  nature  of  money  was  assumed  —  rather  vaguely  — 
by  him,  and  not  clearly  expressed  as  it  ought  to  be.  I 
believed  myself  familiar  with  all  the  important  work  of 
Calhoun.  Somehow  I  had  overlooked  his  contributions 
to  this  subject.  A  few  brief  quotations  from  the  more 
unimportant  of  these  I  found  in  certain  American 
books,  which  made  me  read  the  pertinent  speeches.1 
It  was  a  most  inexpressible  surprise  to  me  to  find  that 
he  had  perfected  Ricardo.  Briefly  stated,  this  is  the 
true  doctrine  according  to  Calhoun.  It  is  not  legal- 
tender  laws,  nor  is  it  intrinsic  value,  which  makes  even 
gold  go  as  money.  Well,  what  is  it?  Calhoun  was  not 
the  first  to  answer  it,  for  others  had  given  the  true 
answer;  but  they  ran  away  from  it  as  soon  as  they 
made  it.  He  divined  the  full  satisfactoriness  of  the 
true  answer,  which  he  demonstrated  to  be  true  by  a 
method  as  nearly  mathematical  as  the  case  admits  of. 
And  he  lightens  up  what  was  dark  before  by  showing 
that  that  is  money,  and  good  money,  whatever  it  may 
be,  —  gold,  silver,  paper,  property,  what  not,  —  which 
the  government  receives  in  payment  of  its  dues.  The 
practice  of  the  government,  —  not  laws,  nor  the  market 
value  of  different  materials  of  money,  —  this  is  the  great 
thing.  If  the  United  States  should  refuse  to  receive 
gold  for  its  dues,  that  would  so  greatly  lessen  the 
demand  for  gold  as  money  that  the  coin  would  depre 
ciate  and  drop  out  of  circulation.  Nothing  —  not  the 
precious  metals,  not  diamonds  of  the  first  water,  not  ra 
dium,  not  the  bills  of  the  best  bank,  not  greenbacks,  not 
treasury  notes  —  can  maintain  themselves  as  money  if 

1  They  were  made  in  the  United  States  Senate,  one,  September  19, 
1837,  on  the  bill  authorizing  issue  of  treasury  notes;  the  other,  October  3, 
1837,  on  his  amendment  of  the  bill  just  mentioned. 


Calhoun  1 09 

the  government  will  not  receive  it.  This  is  the  first  half 
of  the  subject.  Calhoun  adds  the  other  by  showing  that 
whatever  the  government  makes  money,  its  volume  can 
always  be  kept  of  the  proper  quantity,  —  which  proper 
quantity  varies  with  the  needs  of  commerce,  —  so  as  to 
avoid  the  too  much  or  too  little.  His  illustration  from 
the  treasury  notes  of  North  Carolina,  which  could  not 
be  a  legal  tender  under  the  federal  constitution,  but 
which  circulated  briskly  and  buoyantly  and  stayed  at  par 
,for  many  years,  because  they  were  received  without 
discount  by  the  State,  and  also  because  their  volume 
was  kept  within  bounds,  will  yet  greatly  help  the  cause 
of  honest  money. 

In  the  achievement  just  told  Calhoun  not  only  ex 
celled  the  economists  of  his  day,  but  he  is  yet  in  ad 
vance  of  all  of  the  present  except  Del  Mar,1  —  the  only 
economist  who  has  excelled  Ricardo  in  divining  the 
essence  of  money.  These  two  alone  explain  clearly 
and  fully  why  it  is  that  bankers  keep  such  tenacious 
grip  upon  the  money  function  of  government  —  they 
thereby  so  shape  its  practice  that  their  wares  shall  be 
money,  with  all  the  incidents  of  profit  therefrom,  and 
no  others  shall.  Del  Mar  never  quotes  him ;  and  I  al 
most  know  he  has  never  studied  his  views  upon  this 
subject. 

America  will  yet  have  a  "  rational  money,"  a  term 
which  Prof.  Frank  Parsons  has  happily  chosen  as  the 
name  of  his  invaluable  book.2  To  win  it  she  must  fight 

1  His  "  Barbara  Villiers  "  and  his  "  History  of  Money  in  America  "  are 
very  important.     But  his  most  valuable  addition  to  the  few  books  which 
have  taught  true  monetary  doctrine  is  his  "  Science  of  Money."    While  in 
this  he  does  not  state  the  fundamental  principle  of  good  money  as  clearly 
as  Calhoun  does,  yet  he  assumes  it  most  accurately  and  builds  upon  it 
everywhere. 

2  "  Rational  Money,"  published  by  C.  F.  Taylor,  1520  Chestnut  Street, 
Philadelphia.     The  author  does  not  show  the  deep  insight  and  genial 


no  The  Brothers' War 

many  battles  with  the  money  power.  When  this  war  of 
the  people  is  waging  by  the  people  for  the  people,  the 
doctrine  of  Calhoun  will  be  the  banner  of  the  right. 
After  the  sordid  money  oligarchy  is  overthrown  and 
the  United  States  is  blessed  with  a  people's  money,  that 
benign  deliverance  will  add  prodigiously  to  the  fame  of 
Calhoun. 

My  space  does  not  admit  of  telling  you  how  deeply 
Calhoun  loathed  the  spoils  system.  That  must  be 
borne  in  mind,  and  taken  into  account  in  any  true  esti 
mate  of  him  as  a  statesman. 

I  deem  it  especially  important  to  have  you  consider 
his  standing  with  the  people  of  his  State.  Literally  his 
word  was  law  in  South  Carolina.  Hayne  in  1832,  and 
Huger  in  1845,  resigned  their  seats  in  the  national  sen 
ate  to  give  place  to  him.  Everybody  in  his  State  al 
ways  wanted  him  to  lead,  and  everybody  always  wanted 
him  to  lead  according  to  his  own  will.  This  unwonted 
influence,  utterly  without  precedent,  was  due  to  the  ac 
curate  measure  which  the  masses  had  taken  of  him. 
As  he  lived  and  aged  among  them  they  knew  him  bet 
ter  and  better  to  be  irreproachable  in  private  and  public 
life,  the  ablest  of  the  able,  the  most  diligent  of  the 
diligent,  and  the  truest  of  the  true  as  a  representative 
or  official,  and  of  that  severe  and  lofty  virtue  which 
scorns  all  popularity  that  is  not  the  reward  of  righteous 
ness.  And  so  he  became  example,  model,  worship,  to 
all  classes.  The  forty  years  political  ascendency  of 
Pericles  in  the  Athenian  democracy  is  the  only  befit 
ting  historical  parallel  which  I  can  think  of.  Familiar 
with  the  State  from  boyhood,  I  have  long  thought  its 

originality  of  Calhoun  and  Del  Mar;  but  he  has  presented  the  entire 
subject  with  a  judgment  so  sane  in  accepting  the  true  and  rejecting  the 
false  in  the  belonging  theory,  that  the  book  is  the  very  best  of  existing 
compilations. 


Calhoun  1 1 1 

people  the  most  advanced  of  the  south.  In  spite  of  the 
revenge  wreaked  upon  her  in  war,  and  in  spite  of  the 
direr  devastation  of  the  twelve  years  of  negro  rule  fol 
lowing  the  fall  of  the  Confederate  States,  that  little 
community,  with  her  dispensary  and  her  system  of 
really  direct  nomination,1  to  say  nothing  of  her  wise 

1  To  be  nominated  in  the  South  Carolina  primary,  a  candidate  for 
governor  or  any  other  State  place  must  receive  a  majority  in  the  whole 
State,  one  for  congress  a  majority  in  the  district,  one  for  a  county  place 
a  majority  in  the  county.  Where  no  candidate  receives  a  majority  a 
new  primary  is  held  only  to  decide  between  the  two  who  got  the  largest 
vote.  The  primary  first  mentioned  is  a  State  primary,  held  on  the  last 
Tuesday  of  August.  At  this  date,  the  crop  —  to  use  planting  parlance  — 
having  been  laid  by  for  some  six  weeks,  the  voters  have  had  ample 
opportunity  from  reading  the  papers,  talks  with  one  another,  and  hear 
ing  speeches  to  inform  themselves  fully.  Just  across  the  Savannah  in 
Georgia,  the  State  democratic  executive  committee,  so  called,  being  the 
faithful  organ  of  the  railroads,  has  since  1898  put  the  primary  in  the 
early  days  of  June,  in  busiest  crop-time.  This  precludes  any  real  canvass. 
It  also  keeps  thousands  from  voting ;  and  so  the  always  full  turnout  of 
railroad  regulars  and  workers  —  which  is  but  a  relatively  small  portion  of 
the  body  of  electors  —  wins  a  plurality.  The  committee  allows  a  plurality 
to  nominate,  as  of  course  a  plurality  can  be  had  more  easily  than  a  ma 
jority.  To  be  sure  of  the  State  senate,  nominations  to  it  are  made  by  a 
convention  instead  of  a  primary.  And  conventions  in  the  congressional 
districts  nominate  candidates  for  the  lower  house. 

Contrasting  the  results  —  in  South  Carolina  nomination  is  really  the 
voice  of  the  people ;  in  Georgia  the  people  seem  to  get,  while  the  rail 
roads  really  get,  the  governor,  and,  as  everybody  now  expects,  the 
railroads  and  liquor  men  always  have  at  least  twenty-three  of  the  forty- 
four  senators. 

I  believe  that  the  Swiss-like  grip  of  the  people  of  South  Carolina 
upon  their  liberties,  shaming  Georgia  so  greatly  as  it  does,  is  mainly  due 
to  the  influence  of  Calhoun.  That  influence  is  still  benignly  powerful, 
even  where  unrecognized. 

I  think  that  if  the  dispensary  law  were  so  altered  as  to  give  each 
county  the  purchase  of  its  liquor  by,  say,  its  supervisor,  nominated  by 
this  primary,  the  opportunity  of  graft,  now  discrediting  the  administra 
tion  of  the  law  with  many,  would  be  effectually  closed.  There  would 
then  be  everywhere  a  trustworthy  official,  of  their  own  election,  to  keep 
the  people  advised  as  to  proper  prices  and  cost.  It  would  be  to  lose  all 
chance  of  re-election  for  the  official  to  cheat  the  public  by  colluding  with 
the  liquor  sellers. 


1 1 2  The  Brothers'  War 

management  of  all  her  material  resources,  is  teaching 
the  nation  lessons  of  the  highest  wisdom.  These  are 
the  people  from  whom  Calhoun  won  a  crown  more  re 
splendent  than  any  other  of  our  States  has  ever  be 
stowed  upon  a  loved  son.  How  eloquent  were  her  last 
offices.  Read  Mr.  Pinkney's  extracts  from  the  "  Carolina 
Tribute,"  narrating  the  reception  of  his  mortal  remains  in 
Charleston :  l  the  novel  procession  of  vessels,  display 
ing  emblems  of  mourning,  the  solemn  landing  at  noon, 
an  imposing  train  moving  amid  houses  hung  with 
black,  "  a  Sabbath-like  stillness  "  resting  on  the  city, 
"  The  solemn  minute  gun,  the  wail  of  the  distant  bell, 
the  far-off  spires  shrouded  in  the  display  of  grief,  the 
hearse  and  its  attendant  mourners  waiting  on  the  spot, 
alone  bore  witness  that  the  pulse  of  life  still  beat  within 
the  city,  that  a  whole  people  in  voiceless  woe  were 
about  to  receive  and  consign  to  earth  all  that  was  mor 
tal  of  a  great  and  good  citizen." 

Appropriately  and  impressively  Mr.  Pinkney  closes 
his  description  of  this  forever  memorable  demonstration 
by  quoting  Carlyle's  "  How  touching  is  the  loyalty  of 
men  to  their  sovereign  man."  2 

Some  men  reserve  out  of  the  pillage  of  their  fellows  a 
great  fund  to  signalize  their  graves.  Stronger  cars  must 
be  made,  bridges  strengthened,  and  too  narrow  passages 
avoided  by  long  circuits  in  order  that  their  huge  piles 
be  transported  to  the  conspicuous  spot  selected  in  a 
fashionable  cemetery.  How  the  funerals  which  a  weep 
ing  people  give  a  Calhoun,  Liebknecht,  Pingree,  Altgeld, 
and  other  true  ones  dwindle  such  monuments  into  small- 
ness  and  contempt! 

I  must  add  something  here  to  what  has  been  said  in 
the  foregoing  of  Calhoun's  speeches.  Somebody  must 
after  a  while  do  for  him  what  the  compilation  called 

1  Life  of  John  C.  Calhoun,  225-229.  2  Id. 


Calhoun  113 

"  The  Great  Speeches  and  Orations  "  has  done  so  well 
for  Webster.  His  very  greatest  effort  is  that  against  the 
force  bill,  delivered  in  the  United  States  senate  Febru 
ary  15  and  1 6,  1833.  As  an  appeal  in  behalf  of  the 
rights  of  the  minority  against  the  oppressive  majority 
it  is  unequalled.  All  through  it,  from  its  most  befitting 
exordium  to  the  righteous  indignation  of  the  closing 
sentence,  there  are  passages  which  "  the  world  will  not 
willingly  let  die."  No  one  who  has  ever  given  it  atten 
tion  can  forget  the  paragraph  defending  Carolina  against 
the  charge  of  passion  and  delusion ;  that  demolishing  as 
by  a  tornado  the  assertion  of  a  senator  that  the  bill  was 
a  measure  of  peace;  the  far-famed  one  as  to  metaphysi 
cal  reasoning;  what  is  said  as  to  the  nature  of  the  con 
test  between  Persia  and  Greece ;  the  rupture  in  the  tribes 
of  Israel  graphically  expounded ;  the  first  mention  of  the 
government  of  "  the  concurring  majority"  as  distinct 
from  and  far  better  than  that  of  the  absolute  majority; 
the  lesson  to  us  of  the  Roman  tribunes.  To  read  this 
speech  becomingly,  purge  yourself  of  all  prejudice;  by 
an  adequate  effort  of  the  historical  imagination  see  all 
the  main  things  of  the  then  situation,  and  put  yourself 
fully  in  Calhoun's  place,  so  that  you  cannot  fail  to  feel 
all  of  his  deep  earnestness.  You  will  have  succeeded 
when  you  can  rightly  appreciate  this  outburst : 

"  Will  you  collect  money  when  it  is  acknowledged  that  it  is 
not  wanted  ?  He  who  earns  the  money,  who  digs  it  from  the 
earth  with  the  sweat  of  his  brow,  has  a  just  title  to  it  against 
the  universe.  No  one  has  a  right  to  touch  it  without  his  con 
sent  except  his  government,  and  this  only  to  the  extent  of  its 
legitimate  wants.  To  take  more  is  robbery ;  and  you  propose 
by  this  bill  to  enforce  robbery  by  murder." 

When  I  pronounced  that  against  the  force  bill,  the 
greatest  of  his  speeches,  I  was  not  unmindful  of  his  last, 

8 


ii4  The  Brothers'  War 

that  of  March  4,  1850,  not  four  weeks  before  his  death. 
I  can  hardly  class  it  as  a  speech.  It  was  a  revelation  of 
the  woe  in  store  for  America  if  the  abolition  movement 
was  not  checked.  Its  analysis  and  demonstration  of  the 
preponderant  power  of  the  north,  and  its  retrospection 
over  the  progessive  stages  by  which  the  former  equi 
librium  of  the  sections  had  been  destroyed,  are  as  clear 
sighted  as  its  prediction.  Never  in  all  history  has  an 
actor  in  a  revolution  described  its  course  behind  him 
so  understandingly,  nor  its  future  course  with  such 
true  prophecy. 

Let  us  give  you  the  fewest  possible  selected  brief  pas 
sages  that  will  do  something  towards  possessing  you  of 
the  core  of  Calhoun's  valedictory  to  the  United  States 
and  the  South. 

This  is  first  in  order:  "  How  can  the  union  be  saved? 
There  is  but  one  way  by  which  it  can  with  any  certainty ; 
and  that  is  by  a  full  and  final  settlement,  on  the  princi 
ples  of  justice,  of  all  the  questions  at  issue  between  the 
two  sections.  The  south  asks  for  justice,  simple  justice, 
and  less  she  ought  not  to  take.  She  has  no  compromise 
to  offer  but  the  constitution,  and  no  concession  or  sur 
render  to  make." 

The  vital  concern  of  his  section  against  abolition,  and 
what  it  must  do  to  avoid  it,  he  tells  in  these  passages : 

"  [The  South]  regards  the  relation  [of  master  and  slave]  as 
one  which  cannot  be  destroyed  without  subjecting  the  two  races 
to  the  greatest  calamity,  and  the  section  to  poverty,  desolation, 
and  wretchedness,  and  accordingly  she  feels  bound,  by  every 
consideration  of  interest  and  safety,  to  defend  it." 

"  Is  it  not  certain  that  if  something  is  not  done  to  arrest  it 
[the  abolition  movement],  the  south  will  be  forced  to  choose 
between  abolition  and  secession  ?  " 

If  the  south  must  choose  secession,  he  justifies  her  by 
the  example  of  Washington,  with  a  calm  and  repose 


Calhoun  1 1 5 

that  prove  his  deepest  conviction  of  its  rightfulness,  and 
with  a  power  that  cannot  be  confuted.     He  says  : 

[' '  The  Union  cannot]  be  saved  by  invoking  the  name  of  the 
illustrious  southerner  whose  mortal  remains  repose  on  the  west 
ern  bank  of  the  Potomac.  He  was  one  of  us  —  a  slaveholder 
and  a  planter.  We  have  studied  his  history,  and  find  nothing 
in  it  to  justify  submission  to  wrong.  On  the  contrary,  his  great 
fame  rests  on  the  solid  foundation  that,  while  he  was  careful  to 
avoid  doing  wrong  to  others,  he  was  prompt  and  decided  in 
repelling  wrong.  I  trust  that,  in  this  respect,  we  have  profited 
by  his  example. 

Nor  can  we  find  anything  in  his  history  to  deter  us  from 
seceding  from  the  union  should  it  fail  to  fulfil  the  objects  for 
which  it  was  instituted,  by  being  permanently  and  hopelessly 
converted  into  a  means  of  oppressing  instead  of  protecting  us. 
On  the  contrary,  we  find  much  in  his  example  to  encourage  us 
should  we  be  forced  to  the  extremity  of  deciding  between 
submission  and  disunion. 

There  existed  then  as  well  as  now  a  union, —  that  between 
the  parent  country  and  her  then  colonies.  It  was  a  union  that 
had  much  to  endear  it  to  the  people  of  the  colonies.  Under  its 
protecting  and  superintending  care  the  colonies  were  planted, 
and  grew  up  and  prospered,  through  a  long  course  of  years, 
until  they  became  populous  and  wealthy.  Its  benefits  were  not 
limited  to  them.  Their  extensive  agricultural  and  other  pro 
ductions  gave  birth  to  a  flourishing  commerce  which  richly 
rewarded  the  parent  country  for  the  trouble  and  expense  of 
establishing  and  protecting  them.  Washington  was  born  and 
grew  up  to  manhood  under  that  union.  He  acquired  his  early 
distinction  in  its  service ;  and  there  is  every  reason  to  believe 
that  he  was  devotedly  attached  to  it.  But  his  devotion  was  a 
rational  one.  He  was  attached  to  it,  not  as  an  end,  but  as  a 
means  to  an  end.  When  it  failed  to  fulfil  its  end,  and,  instead 
of  affording  protection,  was  converted  into  the  means  of  op 
pressing  the  colonies,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  draw  his  sword  and 
head  the  great  movement  by  which  that  union  was  forever 


n6  The  Brothers'  War 

severed,  and  the  independence  of  these  States  established. 
This  was  the  great  and  crowning  glory  of  his  life,  which  has 
spread  his  fame  over  the  whole  globe,  and  will  transmit  it  to  the 
latest  posterity." 

With  what  moving  entreaty  does  he  thus  adjure  the 
victorious  north: 

The  north  "  has  only  to  wish  it  to  accomplish  it  —  to  do  jus 
tice  by  conceding  to  the  south  an  equal  right  in  the  acquired 
territory,  and  to  do  her  duty  by  causing  the  stipulations  relative 
to  fugitive  slaves  to  be  faithfully  fulfilled,  to  cease  the  agitation 
of  the  slavery  question,  and  to  provide  for  the  insertion  of  a 
provision  in  the  constitution,  by  an  amendment,  which  will  re 
store  to  the  south,  in  substance,  the  power  she  possessed  of 
protecting  herself  before  the  equilibrium  between  the  sections 
was  destroyed  by  the  action  of  the  government.  There  will  be 
no  difficulty  in  devising  such  a  provision  —  one  that  will  pro 
tect  the  south  and  which  at  the  same  time  will  improve  and 
strengthen  the  government  instead  of  impairing  and  weaken 
ing  it." 

"  The  responsibility  of  saving  the  union  rests  on  the  north, 
and  not  on  the  south.  The  south  cannot  save  it  by 'any  act  of 
hers,  and  the  north  may  save  it  without  any  sacrifice  whatever, 
unless  to  do  justice  and  to  perform  her  duties  under  the  con 
stitution  should  be  regarded  by  her  as  a  sacrifice." 

This  sleepless  watchman  since  1835  had  again  and 
again  blown  the  trumpet  as  the  sword  of  disunion  was 
coming  upon  the  land.  Now,  the  grave  yawning  before 
him,  he  sees  that  sword  nearer  and  sharper,  and  con 
scious  that  it  is  his  last  public  duty  he  sends  forth  to  all 
his  country  a  blast  of  warning  more  earnest  and  more 
solemn  than  ever.  Warning  that  the  bloodiest  of  all 
wars  is  coming,  and  that  between  brothers.  Warning  — 
it  is  the  whole  of  this  dread  deliverance.  Here  is  the 
first  paragraph : 


Calhoun  117 

"I  have,  senators,  believed  from  the  first  that  the  agitation  of 
the  subject  of  slavery  would,  if  not  prevented  by  some  timely 
and  effective  measure,  end  in  disunion.  Entertaining  this 
opinion,  I  have  on  all  proper  occasions  endeavored  to  call  the 
attention  of  both  the  two  great  parties  which  divide  the  country 
to  adopt  some  measure  to  prevent  so  great  a  disaster,  but  with 
out  success.  The  agitation  has  been  permitted  to  proceed,  with 
almost  no  attempt  to  resist  it,  until  it  has  reached  a  point  where 
it  can  no  longer  be  disguised  or  denied  that  the  union  is  in 
danger.  You  have  thus  had  forced  upon  you  the  greatest 
and  the  gravest  question  that  can  ever  come  under  your  con 
sideration, —  How  can  the  union  be  preserved?" 

And  this  is  the  last  paragraph : 

"I  have  now,  senators,  done  my  duty  in  expressing  my 
opinions  fully  and  candidly  on  this  solemn  occasion.  In  doing 
so,  I  have  been  governed  by  the  motives  which  have  governed 
me  in  all  stages  of  the  agitation  of  the  slavery  question  since 
its  commencement.  I  have  exerted  myself  during  the  whole 
period  to  arrest  it  with  the  intention  of  saving  the  union,  if  it 
could  be  done,  and  if  it  could  not,  to  save  the  section  where  it 
has  pleased  providence  to  cast  my  lot,  and  which  I  sincerely 
believe  has  justice  and  the  constitution  on  its  side.  Having 
faithfully  done  my  duty  to  the  best  of  my  ability  both  to  the 
union  and  my  section,  throughout  this  agitation,  I  shall  have 
the  consolation,  let  what  will  come,  that  I  am  free  from  all 
responsibility." 

Had  abolition  been  in  charge  of  men,  Calhoun,  claim 
ing,  as  appeared  to  them,  the  most  palpable  rights 
under  current  views  of  justice,  under  the  constitution, 
under  the  law,  and  under  patriotic  duty,  would  have  pre 
vailed.  He  never  understood,  no  more  than  the  aboli 
tionists  themselves  did,  that  providence  was  making  an 
instrument  of  abolition  to  remove  the  only  danger  to 
the  American  union,  and  that  providence  was  not  under 
human  constitutions,  laws,  and  convictions  of  duty.  As 


1 1 8  The  Brothers'  War 

you  meditate  this  superhuman  achievement  of  the  true 
citizen  in  his  last  stand  for  his  doomed  section,  does  it 
not  help  you  to  appreciate  better  the  high  saying  of  the 
Greeks,  that  the  struggle  of  a  good  man  against  fate  is 
the  most  elevating  of  all  spectacles? 

The  speeches  that  will  find  place  in  the  selection  sug 
gested  above  will  not  enrapture  the  reader  with  the 
proud  diction,  learning,  ornateness,  and  exquisite  finish 
of  Webster,  but  he  will  find  them  everywhere  to  be 
proofs  of  the  dictum  of  Faust: 

"  Es  tragt  Verstand  und  rechter  Sinn 
Mit  wenig  Kunst  sich  selber  vor; 
Und  wenn  's  euch  Ernst  ist,  was  zu  sagen, 
1st  's  nothig,  Worten  nachzujagen  ?  "  l 

He  will  also  note  that  many  of  the  wisest  and  most 
eloquent  passages  are  almost  the  extreme  of  choice, 
but  chaste  and  severe,  expression.  Here  read  aloud  the 
passage  as  to  Washington  quoted  above  from  the  speech 
of  March  4,  1850,  and  you  will  hardly  dissent. 

America  owes  it  to  Calhoun  to  publish  a  cheap  edi 
tion  of  his  best  speeches,  and  also  of  his  "  Dissertation 
on  Government." 

A  word  as  to  the  "Dissertation"  and  the  "Discourse 
on  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States."  The  project 
of  these  two  books  lay  close  to  his  heart  for  many  years. 
He  intended  them  as  his  last  admonitions  to  the  people 
of  the  great  republic.  Doubtless  the  special  object  of 
his  retirement  was  to  finish  them,  but  he  had  to  return 
to  the  senate.  What  we  have  of  the  books  was  written 
in  the  little  leisure  which  he  snatched  from  the  pressure 
of  public  duties,  domestic  affairs,  and  ill-health.  The 
resoluteness  with  which,  in  the  midst  of  these  difficulties, 

1  Heyward  thus  translates  :  "  Reason  and  good  sense  express  them 
selves  with  little  art.  And  when  you  are  seriously  intent  on  saying  some 
thing,  is  it  necessary  to  hunt  for  words  ?  " 


Calhoun  119 

he  worked  at  the  self-imposed  task  proves  a  lofty  and 
unselfish  love.  He  did  not  finish  them  to  his  satisfac 
tion.  Darwin  did  not  do  that  with  his  epoch-making 
"  Origin  of  Species,"  for  he  found  there  was  no  need  to 
do  so.  I  believe  that,  as  the  essentials  of  the  belonging 
part  of  evolution  are  all  to  be  found  in  the  "  Origin  of 
Species,"  so  all  the  essentials  of  Calhoun's  great  doctrine 
of  government  are  fully  set  forth  in  his  two  books.  To 
me  the  "  Dissertation  "  seems  complete.  I  note  with 
pleasure  that,  though  slowly,  it  is  steadily  climbing  to 
the  lofty  height  which  is  its  due  place  in  the  world's 
estimation.  And  the  "  Discourse  " —  of  which  he  did  not 
live  to  finish  the  final  draft  —  surely  leads  all  the  pro 
ductions  of  the  State  sovereignty  school.  The  provi 
dence  which  opposed  his  wishes  was  kind  to  his  country, 
to  the  world,  and  to  himself  in  calling  him  from  his 
desk ;  for  it  allowed  him  to  get  Texas  and  Oregon  for 
us,  to  give  mankind  his  Oregon  speech,  and  his  last,  and 
thus  to  finish  his  good  work  and  make  his  fame  full. 

The  foregoing  is  intended  to  influence  my  readers  to 
turn  away  from  Von  Hoist,  who  wrote  Calhoun's  life, 
with  the  smoke  and  dust  of  the  brothers'  war  still  in  his 
eyes,  and  from  Trent,  who  merely  says  ditto  to  Mr. 
Burke,  to  Stephens,  to  the  great  Webster,  to  the  touch 
ing  "  Carolina  Tribute,"  to  the  happy  and  appreciative 
sketch  of  Pinkney,  to  the  man  himself  and  his  grand 
career,  in  order  to  find  the  facts  and  principles  by  which 
one  of  America's  very  greatest  ought  to  be  judged. 
And  I  do  hope  that  they  now  begin  to  discern  that 
Calhoun  was  nothing  at  all  of  a  doctrinaire,  nor  chop- 
logic,  nor  fanatic,  nor  professional  politician,  nor  igno 
rant  and  over-zealous  partisan,  but  was  the  very  height 
of  practical  talent  and  an  extraordinarily  successful  man 
of  affairs,  of  more  than  Roman  integrity,  conscientious 
and  diligent  beyond  almost  all  others  in  the  duties  of 


120  The  Brothers'  War 

his  place,  and  a  foremost  statesman  of  wide  and  pro 
found  culture.  Whether  I  have  accomplished  my  de 
sign  or  not,  let  me  beg  you  to  read  for  yourself  with 
careful  attention  what  Webster  said  of  him  in  the  United 
States  senate  just  after  his  death.  Remember  two  things 
as  you  read:  (i)  The  speaker  and  the  dead  had  been 
opposed  to  one  another  in  politics  for  more  than  twenty 
years,  the  former  being  the  great  exponent  of  free-labor 
nationalization  and  the  other  the  great  exponent  of 
slave-labor  nationalization ;  (2)  nobody  ever  weighed 
his  public  utterances  more  carefully  than  did  Webster, 
and  that  he  would  not  say  anything  which  he  did  not 
believe,  even  as  a  politeness. 

Let  us  now  try  to  follow  with  proper  discernment 
this  man  whom  we  hope  we  have  proved  to  be  good 
and  wise  through  his  titanic  defence  of  the  cause  which 
fate  had  decreed  must  fail.  As  our  explanation  of  how 
evolution,  and  not  the  north  on  one  side  nor  the  south 
on  the  other,  brought  forward  the  crisis  in  which 
slavery,  the  sole  menace  of  American  dismemberment, 
was  to  perish,  is  so  nearly  complete,  we  can  be  much 
briefer  in  the  rest  of  the  chapter. 

The  true  beginning  here  is  with  the  proposition  that 
everything  which  Calhoun  did  as  the  southern  leader 
was  prompted  by  a  righteous  conscience  and  the  high 
est  and  most  unselfish  patriotism.  He  was  the  very  first 
to  discern  the  full  menace  of  abolition  to  the  welfare  of 
the  people  he  represented.  And  when  years  afterwards 
the  situation  became  darker  and  more  serious,  and  more 
and  more  importunately  put  to  him  the  question,  If  ab 
olition  can  be  avoided  only  by  leaving  the  union,  what 
ought  the  south  to  do?  he  answered  to  himself,  with 
the  fullest  approval  of  his  conscience,  she  must  go  out ; 
for  manifestly  it  is  her  paramount  duty  to  protect  her 
citizens  against  any  such  invasion  of  their  rights  as  abo- 


Calhoun  1 2 1 

lition.  But  he  had  no  illusion  as  to  peaceable  secession ; 
and  he  likewise  worshipped  the  union,  believing  with 
deepest  conviction  that  it  is  far  better  for  neighboring 
communities  to  be  federated  than  independent.  And 
the  memories  of  the  great  American  history  were  as 
sweet  to  him  as  they  were  to  Webster.  To  sum  up, 
only  one  thing  in  his  opinion  could  justify  secession. 
That  was  control  of  the  federal  government  by  the  aboli 
tionists.  If  that  comes,  the  south  must  seek  her  inde 
pendence,  even  if  it  is  beyond  a  sea  of  blood. 

Abolition  was  on  its  way  then  to  overturn  the  sup 
ports  of  comfort  and  domestic  peace  in  the  south,  as  it 
afterwards  did.  Suppose  Webster  had  seen  the  immi 
nence  of  such  a  dreadful  evil  to  New  England,  would 
he  not  have  felt  that  his  duty  to  his  section  was  now  the 
great  thing?  My  brother  who  wore  the  blue,  ought  he 
not  to  have  so  felt?  If  the  union  had  been  turned  into 
a  course  which  would  not  only  impoverish  and  beggar 
the  people  of  New  England,  but  would  for  long  years 
actually  deprive  the  masses  of  those  modes  of  business 
and  labor  by  which  they  were  subsisting  themselves  and 
their  families,  can  it  be  thought  that  Webster,1  with  his 
exalted  admiration  of  the  fathers,  who  endured  all  priva 
tions  to  win  liberty  from  their  oppressors,  would  not 
have  been  heart  and  soul  for  secession? 

The  only  actual  difference  between  the  two  great 
patriots  was  that  to  Calhoun  the  dread  alternative  of 
looking  outside  the  union  for  defence  and  protection  of 
home  and  fireside  was  commended  by  a  cruel  fate,  while 
a  kind  fate  withheld  it  from  Webster. 

I  shall  corroborate  the  foregoing  by  some  pertinent 
excerpts  from  Calhoun's  speeches  in  the  United  States 
senate.  And  as  my  purpose  is  to  build  everywhere  in 
this  book,  as  far  as  possible,  upon  only  the  most  obvi 
ous  facts  and  to  vouch  therefor  the  most  accessible 


122  The  Brothers'  War 

authorities,  I  take  the  excerpts  from  quotations  made 
by  Von  Hoist: 

"  It  is  to  us  a  vital  question.  It  involves  not  only  our  liberty, 
but,  what  is  greater  (if  to  freeman  anything  can  be),  existence 
itself.  The  relation  which  now  exists  between  the  two  races  in 
the  slaveholding  States  has  existed  for  two  centuries.  It  has 
grown  with  our  growth,  and  strengthened  with  our  strength.  It 
has  entered  into  and  modified  all  our  institutions,  civil  and 
political.  None  other  can  be  substituted.  We  will  not,  can 
not,  permit  it  to  be  destroyed.  .  .  .  Come  what  will,  should  it 
cost  every  drop  of  blood  and  every  cent  of  property,  we  must 
defend  ourselves  ;  and  if  compelled,  we  should  stand  justified 
by  all  laws,  human  and  divine ;  ...  we  would  act  under  an 
imperious  necessity.  There  would  be  to  us  but  one  alternative, 
—  to  triumph  or  perish  as  a  people."  * 

"  To  destroy  the  existing  relations  would  be  to  destroy  this 
prosperity  [of  the  southern  States]  and  to  place  the  two  races  in 
a  state  of  conflict,  which  must  end  in  the  expulsion  or  extirpation 
of  one  or  the  other.  No  other  can  be  substituted  compatible 
with  their  peace  or  security.  The  difficulty  is  in  the  diversity 
of  the  races.  .  .  .  Social  and  political  equality  between  them 
is  impossible.  The  causes  lie  too  deep  in  the  principles  of  our 
nature  to  be  surmounted.  But,  without  such  equality,  to 
change  the  present  condition  of  the  African  race,  were  it  pos 
sible,  would  be  but  to  change  the  form  of  slavery."  2 

"  He  must  be  blind,  indeed,  who  does  not  perceive  that  the 
subversion  of  a  relation  which  must  be  followed  with  such  disas 
trous  consequences  can  be  effected  only  by  convulsions  that 
would  devastate  the  country,  burst  asunder  the  bonds  of  union, 
and  engulf  in  a  sea  of  blood  the  institutions  of  the  country.  It 
is  madness  to  suppose  that  the  slaveholding  States  would 
quietly  submit  to  be  sacrificed.  Every  consideration  —  interest, 
duty,  and  humanity,  the  love  of  country,  the  sense  of  wrong, 
hatred  of  oppressors  and  treacherous  and  faithless  confederates, 
and,  finally,  despair  —  would  impel  them  to  the  most  daring 

l  Von  Hoist,  John  C.  Calhoun,  133.  2  Id.  141. 


Calhoun  123 

and  desperate  resistance  in  defence  of  property,  family,  country, 
liberty,  and  existence." 1 

The  student  unfamiliar  with  the  confederate  side  of 
the  brothers'  war  can  find  the  whole  of  it  clearly  stated 
in  these  short  passages  re-enforced  by  the  cognate  ones 
quoted  above  from  the  speech  of  March  4,  1850.  The 
maintenance  of  the  then  existing  relations  between  white 
and  black  was  vital  both  to  liberty  and  existence.  Be 
cause  of  the  world-wide  diversity  of  the  two  races  they 
cannot  be  socially  or  politically  equal  (a  subject  which 
we  will  deal  with  specially  after  a  while).  And  it  was 
the  duty  of  the  south  to  fight  to  the  bitter  end  "  in  de 
fence  of  property,  family,  country,  liberty,  and  exist 
ence."  This  is  the  marrow  of  the  quotations.  They 
convincingly  show  not  only  the  grasp  of  the  statesman, 
but  the  prescience  of  the  prophet,  as  has  been  plainly 
proved  by  the  brothers'  war  and  what  followed  in  its 
track. 

Opposition  to  the  tariff,  which  in  his  judgment  fa 
vored  the  manufacturing  at  the  expense  of  the  staple 
States,  seems  to  have  been  the  first  thing  that  led  Cal 
houn  to  take  a  pro-Southern  stand  in  politics.2  It 
finally  produced  the  famous  nullification  episode,  which 
we  have  already  somewhat  discussed.  In  this  his  plat 
form  was  simply  anti-tariff.  But  the  current,  without 
his  being  aware  of  it,  was  carrying  him  resistlessly  and 
rapidly  on  into  the  anti-abolition  career  in  which  his  life 
ended.  It  was  the  petition  presented  in  1835  to  con 
gress  against  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  which, 

1  Von  Hoist,  John  C.  Calhoun,  148. 

2  As  illustrating  his  anti-tariff  progress,  see  what  he  says  in  his  letter 
of  July,  1828,  to  James  Monroe,  Correspondence,  266;  what  in  that  to 
his  relative,  Noble,  of  January,  1829,  id.  269,  270;  in  that  to  Samuel  L. 
Gouvernour,  of  February,  1832,  id.  310,  311 ;  and  what  as  to  benefit  from 
having  concentrated  opinions  in  south,  in  that  to  his  brother-in-law,  id' 
SU,  314. 


124  The  Brothers'  War 

it  seems,  was  the  first  thing  that  opened  his  eyes  to  the 
menace  of  abolition.  Note  his  wonderful  foresight. 
Compare  him  with  Cicero  just  before  the  outbreak  of 
the  war  between  Pompey  and  Csesar ;  or  with  Demos 
thenes  before  Philip  discloses  his  purpose  towards 
Greece ;  or  with  Carl  Marx,  predicting  the  future  of  co 
operative  enterprise.  Cicero  almost  foresees  nothing  — 
he  mostly  fears ;  Marx  is  utterly  mistaken.  The  divina 
tion  of  Demosthenes  is  far  superior,  and  it  is  clear;  yet 
it  is  belated  when  it  comes.  But  Calhoun  sees  with 
"  appalling  clearness,"  as  Von  Hoist  says,  all  the  storm- 
cloud  from  which  tempest  and  tornado  will  ravage  the 
entire  land,  just  as  its  first  speck  shows  on  the  horizon; 
and  nobody  else  will  see  that.  If  this  abolition  move 
ment  is  not  stopped  in  its  incipiency,  it  will  soon  get 
beyond  all  control.  This  he  says  over  and  over  in  his 
public  place.  What  a  horrible  spectre  of  the  future 
haunted  him  for  the  rest  of  his  life  !  The  south  in  her 
self-defence  forced  out  of  the  union,  and  then  perhaps 
overcome  in  war.  After  her  braves  have  perished,  and 
their  dear  ones  at  home  have  been  plunged  in  the 
depths  of  want,  the  triumphant  abolitionists  will  have 
the  former  slaves  to  lord  it  over  them. 

His  conscience  commanded  him  to  stand  by  slavery 
as  the  fundamental  condition  of  his  people's  well-being; 
it  also  at  the  same  time  commanded  him  to  strain  all 
his  energies  to  save  the  union  by  making  it  the  pro 
tector  instead  of  the  assailant  of  slavery.  This  was  the 
insuperable  task  which  the  powers  in  the  unseen  put  him 
in  the  treadmill  to  do.  From  the  time  he  commenced 
the  discussion  of  the  anti-slavery  petitions  until  his  ex 
clamation  over  the  "  poor  south,"  on  his  death-bed,  life 
was  to  him  but  a  deepening  agony  of  solicitude  and 
utmost  effort,  —  solicitude  for  his  country  and  section, 
effort  to  avert  the  danger  that  became  greater  and  more 


Calhoun  1 25 

awful  to  him  every  day.  He  strove  after  remedies 
under  the  constitution.  The  more  he  recalled  the  suc 
cess  of  the  single  stand  of  South  Carolina  against  the 
tariff,  the  prouder  he  became  of  being  the  author  of 
nullification.  Its  dearness  to  him  was  that  it  was  peace 
able  as  well  as  efficient.  The  better  opinion  of  the 
State-rights  school  is  that  nullification  is  an  absurdity, 
and  that  South  Carolina's  only  true  remedy  against  the 
tariff  was  to  secede  if  it  were  not  repealed.  But  he 
knew  better  than  everybody  else  that  secession  meant 
internecine  war  between  the  sections,  and  this  influenced 
him  to  exalt  peaceable  nullification  above  bloody  se 
cession. 

It  needs  not  to  consider  each  barrier,  whether  party 
combinations,  admission  of  new  slave  States,  legislation, 
etc.,  that  he  tried  to  erect  against  the  incoming  oceanic 
wave.  But  we  must  briefly  consider  the  amendment 
of  the  constitution  which  he  proposed.  He  wanted  the 
north  and  the  south  each  to  have  a  president,  as  he  said, 
"  to  be  so  elected,  as  that  the  two  should  be  constituted 
the  special  organs  and  representatives  of  the  respective 
sections  in  the  executive  department  of  the  government; 
and  requiring  each  to  approve  all  the  acts  of  congress 
before  they  shall  become  laws."1  Do  this,  he  urged, 
and  neither  section  can  use  the  powers  of  government 
to  injure  the  other,  for  whatever  proposed  law  menaces 
a  section  will  be  vetoed  by  its  president.  It  profits  the 
student  of  the  science  of  government  to  consider  the  his 
torical  examples  which  Calhoun  adduced  here.  They 
are  indeed  so  apt  that  the  hearing  which  has  ever  been 
denied  him  should  be  granted  him  at  least  academically. 
He  says :  "  The  two  most  distinguished  constitutional 
governments  of  antiquity  both  in  respect  to  permanence 

1  Discourse  on  the  Constitution  and  Government  of  the  United  States, 
Works,  vol.  i.  392. 


126  The  Brothers'  War 

and   power  had  a  dual  executive.     I  refer  to  those  of 
Sparta  and  Rome." 1 

It  is  interesting  to  be  informed  that  those  same  wise 
Iroquois  from  whom  our  fathers  probably  got  the  pre 
cedent  of  the  old  confederation,  put  in  practice  some 
thing  very  like  what  Calhoun  advises.  We  append  both 
the  account  and  instructive  comment  of  Morgan: 

"  When  the  Iroquois  confederacy  was  formed,  or  soon  after 
that  event,  two  permanent  war-chiefships  were  created  and 
named.  ...  As  general  commanders  they  had  charge  of  the 
military  affairs  of  the  confederacy,  and  the  command  of  its  joint 
forces  when  united  in  a  general  expedition.  .  .  .  The  creation 
of  two  principal  war-chiefs  instead  of  one,  and  with  equal  power, 
argues  a  subtle  and  calculating  policy  to  prevent  the  domination 
of  a  single  man  even  in  their  military  affairs.  They  did  without 
experience  precisely  as  the  Romans  did  in  creating  two  consuls 
instead  of  one,  after  they  had  abolished  the  office  of  rex.  Two 
consuls  would  balance  the  military  power  between  them,  and 
prevent  either  from  becoming  supreme.  Among  the  Iroquois 
this  office  never  became  influential." 2 

But  Calhoun  lays  much  more  stress  upon  another 
example,  —  that  of  the  protection  which  the  Roman 
plebeians  got  in  tribunes  elected  from  their  own  order 
alone,  which  tribunes  could  veto  any  act  of  the  law- 
making  organs,  all  of  which  were  then  actually  in  the 
hands  of  their  oppressors,  that  is,  the  order  of  patricians ; 
the  result  being  that  in  course  of  time  the  plebeians 
achieved  equality.3 

Of  course  the  inevitable  could  not  be  put  off.     And 

1  Discourse  on  the  Constitution  and  Government  of  the  United  States, 
Works,  vol.  i.  393. 

2  Ancient  Society,  147,  148. 

8  A  Disquisition  on  Government,  Works,  vol.  i.  92-96.  Compare  for 
Calhoun's  treatment  Benton's  report  of  his  conversations,  and  the  perti 
nent  excerpts  he  gives  from  Calhoun's  speech  in  the  United  States 
Senate  of  February  15  and  16,  1833,  Thirty  Years'  View,  vol.  i.  335  sq. 


Calhoun  1 27 

yet  ought  we  not  to  admire  the  inventive  genius  of  the 
statesman  who  of  all  proposed  the  remedy  that  promised 
the  best?  And  ought  we  not  also  to  cherish  in  affec 
tionate  memory  this  last  and  high  effort  of  Calhoun  to 
avert  a  dreadful  brothers'  war  at  hand,  the  end  and 
consequences  of  which  nobody  could  then  forecast? 

The  situation  of  Rome  granting  tribunes  to  the  plebs 
was  widely  different  from  ours.  That  was  a  case  of 
giving  a  veto  to  one  class  only,  and  to  a  class  which 
belonged  to  the  entire  body  politic.  Calhoun  proposed 
not  a  single  veto,  but  two ;  neither  one  to  be  given  such 
a  class  as  we  have  just  mentioned,  but  a  veto  to  each 
one  of  two  geographical  divisions,  in  one  of  which  there 
was  a  developed,  and  in  the  other  a  nascent  and  almost 
complete,  nationality,  these  two  nationalities  already 
closed  with  each  other  in  a  life  and  death  grapple.  His 
hope  must  have  been  to  confine  the  combatants  to  an 
arena  which  could  be  effectually  policed  by  the  civil 
power,  and  in  which  all  fighting  except  with  buttoned 
foils  be  prevented.  We  may  be  almost  sure  that  his 
heart  broke  when  that  presentiment  which  often  comes 
to  the  dying  as  clear  as  sunlight  revealed  the  bloody 
war  that  was  quickening  its  approach. 

O  the  unutterable  pathos  of  his  life  from  1835  to 
1850!  During  this  time  he  was  like  the  mother  of  a 
boy  whom  consumption  has  marked  for  its  own.  In 
advance  of  all  others  she  reads  the  first  symptom,  nay, 
she  anticipates  it  All  those  who  believe  that  they 
know  him  as  well  as  she  does,  laugh  at  her  fears  with 
unsympathetic  incredulity.  But  her  eyes  never  fail  to 
see  grim  death  at  the  door,  although  bravely  she  hopes 
against  hope,  and  fights,  fights,  fights.  Inexorably,  re 
lentlessly  the  end,  which  others  now  begin  to  discern, 
comes  on,  but  until  the  last  breath  of  her  darling  she 
has  ever  some  suggestion  of  change  of  place  or  climate, 


128  The  Brothers'  War 

of  a  new  remedy,  of  something  else  to  be  done.  It  is 
the  supreme  tragedy  of  her  trial  that  while  outwardly 
she  is  all  self-gratifying  love,  inwardly  she  is  all  self- 
consuming  misery.  We  say  the  love  of  a  mother  is 
greater  than  all  other.  But  we  know  that  she  loves  her 
country  better  than  she  does  her  child.  Patriotism 
is  as  yet  the  strongest  love  of  all.  Realize  that  our 
exalted  patriot  was  tending  and  nursing  the  cause  of  his 
country.  Think  of  the  noble  Lee,  his  career  of  victory 
over,  wearing  away  the  winter  at  Petersburg,  hourly 
expecting  his  line,  so  tensely  stretched  in  order  to  face 
overwhelming  odds,  to  break;  think  of  him  after  it  does 
break,  on  the  retreat,  when  he  has  discovered  that  his 
supplies  have  gone  wrong ;  and  think  of  him  when  he 
must  yield  the  sword  as  ever  memorable  as  Hannibal's. 
The  world  has  given  Lee,  and  will  long  give  him,  rains 
of  gracious  tears.  But  he  was  never  plagued  with  Cal- 
houn's  sharpened  eyes  to  future  disaster,  and  he  was 
confident  that  he  would  reach  the  mountains  almost 
until  the  very  moment  of  surrender.  Think  rather  of 
the  great  sufferers  for  high  causes, —  Bonnivard,  wearing 
a  pathway  over  the  stone  floor  of  his  prison ;  Lear,  of 
all  of  Shakspeare's  heroes,  in  the  deepest  gulf  of  mis 
fortune  ;  and  especially  of  Calvary  and  the  crucifixion, 
for  Jesus  travailed  for  his  brothers  and  sisters.  It  is 
here  you  must  look  for  the  like  of  Calhoun.  For  fifteen 
years  that  "  mass  of  moan "  which  was  coming  to  his 
dear  ones  pierced  his  ears  plainer  and  plainer  and  made 
his  heart  sicker  and  sicker,  and  during  this  long  bloody 
sweat  he  gave  the  rarest  devotion  and  self-sacrifice  to 
his  country  which  he  feared  more  and  more  was  to 
plunge  over  the  precipice.  As  we  recall  the  scene  of 
his  death  it  makes  us  rejoice  to  know  that  the  cross  he 
had  borne  so  long  has  at  last  been  cast  off  and  he  has 
entered  into  the  rest  of  the  martyr-patriot.  Then  it 


Calhoun  1 29 

occurs  to  us  that  he  carried  with  him  his  affections, — 
too  lofty  not  to  be  immortal,  —  and  we  cannot  believe 
that  the  sad  spirit  ever  smiled  until  Wade  Hampton, 
twenty-six  years  afterwards,  re-erected  white  domination 
in  South  Carolina. 

Dixie  will  never  forget  that  one  who  of  all  her  sons 
loved  her  best  and  suffered  for  her  the  most.  And  it  is 
my  conviction  that  each  noblest  soul  of  the  north  will 
after  a  while  revere  in  Calhoun  the  American  parallel 
to  the  moral  grandeur  of  Dante,  of  whom  Michaelangelo 
said  he  would  cheerfully  endure  his  exile  and  all  his 
misfortunes  for  his  glory. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

WEBSTER 

CALHOUN  was  the  pre-eminent  champion  of  the 
southern  cause  in  the  union,  while  Toombs  was 
that  of  southern  nationalization  seeking  inde 
pendence.     Webster  was  the  pre-eminent  champion  of 
American    nationalization    seeking    continental    union. 
Toombs  and  Webster  are  therefore  in  antithesis;   and 
it  will  be  well  for  me  to  begin  the  chapter  by  anticipat 
ing  some  of  the  characteristics  of  the  former,  who  will 
be  treated  at  large  later  on,  and  briefly  contrasting  the 
two. 

By  nature  Toombs  was  so  prone  to  action  that  even 
in  his  daily  recreation  —  talk  with  the  nearest  to  him 
was  by  far  the  most  of  it — his  immense  and  tireless 
outpouring  of  fine  phrase,  wisdom,  and  wit  was  the  in 
creasing  wonder  of  all  who  knew  him.  Webster's  prone- 
ness  was  to  repose,  almost  indolence.  He  often  seemed 
lethargic.  His  activity  could  be  excited  only  by  the 
pressure  of  necessity.  This  difference  between  the  two 
showed  itself  very  markedly  in  their  several  careers. 
Toombs,  coming  to  the  bar  in  the  last  year  of  his  non 
age,  took  the  profession  at  once  to  his  heart,  settled  in 
his  native  county,  in  a  lucrative  field  of  practice,  over 
came  all  hindrances  of  natural  defects  and  insufficient 
training  seemingly  by  a  mere  act  of  will,  and  in  four  or 
five  years  his  collecting  a  thousand-dollar  fee  in  an  ad 
joining  county  was  no  very  uncommon  thing.  When 
he  was  twenty-eight  he  was  a  fully  developed  lawyer 


Webster  131 

and  advocate  on  every  side  —  law,  equity,  and  criminal 
—  of  the  courts  of  that  prosperous  planting  community, 
then  overrunning  with  cases  of  importance,  and  his 
annual  income  from  practice  was  $15,000.  Webster 
went  up  much  more  slowly.  He  read  long  and  indus 
triously;  was  not  called  until  he  was  twenty-three ;  for 
the  next  two  and  a  half  years  was  content  with  an  in 
come  of  $600  or  $700 ;  and  then  for  nine  years  at  Ports 
mouth  his  average  income  was  $2,000  yearly.  Even 
when  Webster  at  thirty-four  removed  to  Boston  he 
was  hardly  as  a  lawyer  the  equal  of  Toombs  at  twenty- 
eight;  and  I  believe  that  the  latter  was  always  the 
superior  lawyer.  The  greater  reputation  of  Webster  is 
due  to  the  greater  reputation  of  his  cases,  and  of  the 
tribunal  wherein  he  long  held  the  lead. 

We  see  a  like  difference  between  the  two  in  congress. 
Webster  shirks  the  routine  duties  of  his  place  to  gain 
opportunity  for  practice  in  the  United  States  supreme 
court.  Toombs  stays  away  from  all  courts  during  the 
session,  and  gives  every  measure  before  the  body  to 
which  he  belongs  its  proper  attention,  study,  and  labor. 
But  the  performance  by  him  of  all  the  many  duties  of 
representative  or  senator,  whether  little  or  great,  with 
unparalleled  diligence,  ability,  and  splendor,  has  been  so 
completely  obscured  by  the  few  of  Webster's  great 
congressional  exploits,  that  it  is  not  now  cared  for  by 
anybody. 

The  greater  lawyer  and  the  greater  congressman  has 
been  accorded  the  lesser  renown.  This  is  because  of 
the  relation  which  each  one  bore  to  the  two  publics 
which  I  have  tried  to  make  you  understand, —  the 
southern  public  and  the  northern  public.  Toombs's  legal 
career  was  mainly  in  the  courts  of  his  own  State.  It 
was  not  much  heard  of  outside,  in  even  the  southern 
public,  until  his  extraordinarily  meritorious  discharge  of 


132  The  Brothers'  War 

congressional  duties  involving  a  mastery  of  law  was 
observed.  Although  some  of  Webster's  cases  in  State 
courts  were  celebrated,  his  greatest  ones,  to  be  con 
sidered  in  a  moment,  were  won  in  the  United  States 
supreme  court,  in  the  eyes  of  both  publics  watching 
intently.  The  highest  accomplishments  of  Toombs  in 
the  non-sectional  parts  of  his  congressional  career  were 
almost  matters  of  indifference  at  the  time  to  both 
publics,  becoming  steadily  more  absorbed  in  pro-  and 
anti-slavery  politics ;  and  what  he  did  in  the  other  part 
of  it  excited  the  hostility  of  the  northern  public,  and 
brought  him  obloquy  instead  of  good  name.  The  few 
memorable  deeds  of  Webster  in  congress  were  victorious 
vindications  of  the  cause  dearest  of  all  to  the  northern, 
that  is,  the  free-labor,  public.  That  public  has  at  last  not 
only  conquered,  but  it  has  annexed  the  other  as  a  part  of 
itself.  And  so  Toombs's  fame  as  a  lawyer  and  states 
man  has  been  left  so  far  behind  that  it  can  hardly  hope 
ever  to  have  impartial  and  fair  comparison  with  that  of 
Webster. 

Just  one  more  parallel,  and  I  shall  proceed  with  my 
sketch.  Each  one  of  the  two,  in  order  to  accept  his 
mission  of  leadership,  was  plainly  made  by  his  destiny 
to  abandon  a  previously  cherished  doctrine  for  a  new 
and  contrary  one.  Toombs  was  once  an  ardent  union 
man,  Webster  was  once  almost  a  secessionist.  In  his 
Taylor  speech,  made  in  the  United  States  house  of 
representatives  July  I,  1848,  speaking  of  the  then 
expected  acquisition  of  territory,  Toombs  said : 

"  All  the  rest  of  this  continent  is  not  worth  our  glorious 
union,  much  less  these  contemptible  provinces  which  now 
threaten  us  with  such  evils.  It  were  better  that  we  should 
throw  back  the  worthless  boon,  and  let  the  inhabitants  work  out 
their  own  destiny,  than  that  we  should  endanger  our  peace,  our 
safety,  and  our  nationality  by  their  incorporation  in  our  union." 


Webster  133 

The  silly  embargo  measures,  making  war  upon  our 
own  citizens  instead  of  our  enemies,  had  deeply  injured 
New  England  interests.  On  their  heel  came  the  second 
war  with  England,  into  which  the  government  of  France 
had,  as  Mr.  Lodge  says,  "tricked  us  ...  by  most 
profligate  lying."  1  This  war  paralyzed  the  production 
and  occupations  of  Webster's  people. 

A  speech  made  by  him  July  4,  1812,  is  "a  strong, 
calm  statement  of  the  grounds  of  opposition  to  the 
war."  2  Mr.  Lodge  quotes  and  emphasizes  a  passage  as 
proof  that  Webster,  although  a  federalist,  and  the  ma 
jority  of  his  party  in  New  England  were  —  to  use  the 
words  of  the  same  author —  "  prepared  to  go  to  the  very 
edge  of  the  narrow  legal  line  which  divides  constitu 
tional  opposition  from  treasonable  resistance,"  3  was  then 
standing  by  the  union  with  might  and  main.  This  quo 
tation,  separated  from  its  circumstances  and  the  imme 
diate  sequel,  strongly  supports  the  contention.  The 
speech  being  printed,  circulated  widely  among  those  fed 
eralists  who  were  gravitating  so  strongly  towards  "  trea 
sonable  resistance."  By  reason  of  it  Webster  was  chosen 
as  a  delegate  to  a  convention,  held  the  next  month. 
This  man,  whom  Mr.  Lodge  would  have  us  believe  to 
be  so  fixedly  counter  to  the  then  uppermost  revolu 
tionary  sentiment  of  his  party,  was  chosen  to  be  their 
mouthpiece.  He  wrote  their  report  —  the  "  Rocking- 
ham  Memorial"  —  in  the  form  of  a  letter  to  President 
Madison.  Mr.  Lodge  thus  contrasts  the  report  and  the 
speech.  "  In  one  point  the  memorial  differed  curiously 
from  the  oration  of  the  month  before.  The  latter 
pointed  to  the  suffrage  as  the  mode  of  redress ;  the 
former  distinctly  hinted  at  and  almost  threatened  seces 
sion,  even  while  it  deplored  a  dissolution  of  the  union  as 
a  possible  result  of  the  administration's  policy."  4  Then 

1  Daniel  Webster,  50.         2  Id.  45,  46.         s  Id.  46.          4  Id.  48. 


134  The  Brothers'  War 

the  biographer  most  confidently  states  that  in  the  speech 
Webster  was  declaring  his  own  views,  but  in  the  other 
document  he  was  declaring  those  of  members  of  his 
party. 

But  the  average  American  will  be  sure  that  those 
familiar  with  the  speech  at  the  time  did  not  strain  its 
counsels  as  far  away  from  their  own  as  Mr.  Lodge  does, 
otherwise  they  would  not  have  elected  him  as  delegate ; 
and  further,  he  never  would  have  made  their  report  for 
them  unless  he  had  been  known  to  entertain  their  own 
sentiments.1 

The  popular  wave  that  he  had  thus  mounted  carried 
the  draftsman  of  the  "  Rockingham  Memorial  "  into  con 
gress,  where,  while  British  armies  were  actually  treading 
our  soil,  he  voted  against  the  taxes  proposed  for  na 
tional  defence.  Mr.  Lodge  does  not  go  the  full  length 
of  sustaining  this  conduct2  The  severe  comment  of  an 
other  biographer  will  be  cordially  approved  by  average 
readers,  northern  and  southern.3 

The  facts  properly  considered  show  that  from  the 
speech  of  July  4,  1812,  on,  Webster,  although  he  stood 
aloof  from  the  Hartford  convention  movement,  was  in 
full  sympathy  with  the  federalists  of  New  England,  whom 
the  national  government  by  its  unrighteous  oppressions 
had  driven  to  contemplate  disunion  as  a  possible  meas 
ure  of  self-protection. 

This  attitude  of  Webster  towards  the  union  was  en 
tirely  contrary  to  that  which  afterwards  became  his 
power  and  glory  among  his  countrymen.  We  wish  it 
noted  that  as  he  changed  with  the  people  of  New  Eng- 

1  In  his  Encyclopedia  Americana  article  Mr.  Carl  Schurz  strains  as 
hard  as  Mr.  Lodge  does  in  his  biography  to  conceal  the  real  position  of 
Webster.    I  commend  the  homespun  reasoning  of  this  paragraph  to  all 
such. 

2  Daniel  Webster,  59. 

?  McMaster,  Daniel  Webster,  85. 


Webster  135 

land  from  anti-tariff  to  pro-tariff  politics,  he  likewise 
changed  with  them  in  their  principles  as  to  the  union ; 
and  that  Toombs  went  with  the  south,  in  an  opposite 
direction,  that  is,  from  embrace  to  rejection  of  the  union. 

Having  in  the  foregoing  brought  out  the  prominent 
characteristics  of  Webster's  nature  and  career,  and  hav 
ing  also  impressed  you  that  he,  like  all  other  great 
statesmen,  could  lead  only  by  following  his  people,  I  will 
cursorily  trace  him  from  stage  to  stage  through  his  de 
velopment.  He  was  selected  in  infancy,  if  not  before 
by  providence,  to  be  made  not  the  expounder  of  the 
constitution,  but  the  invincible  defender  of  the  union. 
When  his  activity  begins,  he  is  at  first  to  consolidate 
the  union  by  the  management  of  some  great  law  cases, 
and  delivery  of  occasional  addresses  to  popular  assem 
blies  ;  and  afterwards  in  his  high  place  as  United  States 
senator  he  is  to  demonstrate  to  the  northern  public  its 
complete  guaranty  of  their  highest  material  interests, 
and  set  it  in  their  hearts  above  all  things  else.  Thus  did 
providence  assign  to  him  the  preservation  of  the  greatest 
of  all  democracies,  to  the  end  that  there  be  no  break  in 
the  future  course  of  human  improvement. 

Before  his  activity  begins  the  powers  train  him. 
They  gave  him  a  long  education,  and  a  slow  growth  as 
a  statesman.  He  could  never  remember  when  he  had 
been  unable  to  read.  His  feeble  physique  while  a  child 
shielded  him  from  the  labor  required  of  the  other  chil 
dren,  and  permitted  him  to  enjoy  books.  Early  he 
soaked  his  mind  in  the  King  James  version  of  the  bible 
and  other  good  English  standards.  As  he  grew  apace 
his  opportunities  of  reading  were  far  better  than  those 
of  Calhoun,  who  never  saw  even  a  circulating  library 
until  he  was  in  his  thirteenth  year,  and  soon  was  taken 
away  from  that.  These  opportunities  he  used  in  his 
leisurely  way.  His  mind  was  strong  and  his  memory 


136  The  Brothers'  War 

good,  and  he  digested  and  kept  under  command  what 
he  read.  His  schooling  and  college  course  were  in 
the  main  continuous.  He  got  to  Dartmouth  at  fifteen, 
where  he  spent  four  years.  Here  he  made  the  reputa 
tion  of  being  the  best  speaker  and  writer  of  all  the  stu 
dents.  In  his  study  for  the  law  he  took  ample  time. 
And  in  his  first  years  of  practice  he  had  much  leisure. 
Besides  revelling  in  the  Latin  classics,  Shakspeare, 
Milton,  Pope,  and  Cowper,  and  much  history,  he  was 
keenly  observant  of  what  was  going  on  about  him. 
We  know  how  Jeremiah  Mason  gave  him  lessons  both 
in  law,  rhetoric,  and  elocution  to  his  great  advancement. 
We  know  too  that  his  interest  in  current  political  ques 
tions  was  vigilant.  He  took  his  seat  in  congress  May, 
1813,  being  then  a  little  over  thirty-one.  His  speech 
against  a  bill  to  encourage  enlistments  made  January 
14,  the  next  year,  shows,  as  Mr.  Lodge  says,  that  "  he 
was  now  master  of  the  style  at  which  he  aimed." 1  Of 
this  peculiar  style  I  shall  say  something  after  a  while. 
Mention  of  his  greatest  exploits  in  consolidating  the 
union  is  now  in  order. 

The  first  of  these  is  his  conduct  of  the  Dartmouth 
college  case  in  the  United  States  supreme  court.  It  is 
entirely  out  of  place  for  me  to  give  even  the  briefest 
notice  of  the  details  which  fill  Mr.  Shirley's  unique 
book.2  Little  more  than  emphasis  of  the  effect  of  the 
decision  to  knit  more  closely  the  bonds  of  union  be 
tween  the  States  is  required.  This  effect  will  be  consid 
ered  more  carefully  when  we  comment  on  Gibbons  v. 
Ogden,  which  finishes  the  important  work  commenced 
in  the  other.  It  needs  only  to  remind  the  reader  now 
that  the  protection  of  contracts  against  impairing  State 

1  Daniel  Webster,  52. 

2  Dartmouth  College  Causes.  —  Mr.  Lodge's  narrative,  Daniel  Web 
ster,  74-98  —  is  a  very  helpful  introduction  to  the  book  just  mentioned. 


Webster  137 

legislation  has  contributed  probably  more  than  any 
thing  else  to  the  prosperous  development  of  American 
internal  trade  and  commerce,  —  a  most  potent  factor 
in  consolidating  the  union,  —  and  that  this  protection 
originates  in  the  Dartmouth  college  decision.  But  there 
is  something  special  to  be  said  of  Webster  as  to  the 
case.  He  did  not  stress  the  constitutional  point  —  that 
upon  which  the  judgment  was  finally  placed  —  either  in 
his  law-brief  or  argument.  The  victory  is  all  due  to 
his  consummate  management  of  the  court,  especially 
of  the  chief-justice.  The  latter  really  found  the  true 
ground  of  the  decision.  But  the  powers  had  Webster 
in  hand,  and  it  suited  their  purposes  to  crown  their 
Liebling  with  the  credit  of  the  decision.  When  he 
found  out  the  reasons  given  for  the  ruling  he  had  won, 
I  fancy  that  a  good  angel  of  his  destiny  whispered  in 
his  ear  he  ought  to  have  discerned  that  the  weal  of  all 
classes  of  his  entire  country,  and  not  merely  that  of  its 
colleges,  was  at  stake  in  his  case,  and  he  must  never 
in  the  future  overlook  such  an  opportunity  again.  In 
his  Hanover  fourth  of  July  speech,  made  when  he  was 
only  eighteen  years  old,  to  quote  from  the  authority 
we  make  so  much  use  of,  "  the  boy  Webster  preached 
love  of  country,  the  grandeur  of  American  nationality, 
fidelity  to  the  constitution  as  the  bulwark  of  nationality, 
and  the  necessity  and  the  nobility  of  the  union  of  the 
States."  1  Mr.  Lodge  impressively  adds,  "  and  that  was 
the  message  which  the  man  Webster  delivered  to  his 
fellow  men." 2  His  Fryeburg  fourth  of  July  speech, 
made  not  long  afterwards,  was  in  the  same  strain. 
After  the  powers  had  thus  started  him  in  the  way  they 
wanted  him  to  go,  we  have  noted  above  how  he  was 
carried  by  the  federalists  of  New  England  into  a  move 
ment  hostile  to  the  union.  This  brief  wandering  from 

1  Lodge,  Daniel  Webster,  22.  2  Id.  22. 


138  The  Brothers'  War 

his  destiny,  as  it  were,  is  to  be  compared  with  his  neg 
lect  to  grasp  the  point  in  the  Dartmouth  college  case 
which  was  in  the  exact  line  of  that  high  destiny.  This 
shows  how  even  the  greatest  genius  must  stumble  and 
grope  before  it  has  found  the  right  road.  I  think  the 
Venus  and  Adonis,  Lucrece,  First  Part  of  Henry  VI, 
and  the  Sonnets  of  Shakspeare  are  like  examples. 

The  Plymouth  oration,  delivered  in  1820,  begins  a 
new  and  very  important  stage  of  Webster's  career.  As 
Virginia  was  the  mother  of  the  southern  States,  so  New 
England  was  in  large  measure  the  mother  of  the  north 
ern.  The  latter  was  the  very  fountain  of  the  free-labor 
nationalization.  And  as  she  was  known  to  be  excep 
tionally  advanced  in  intellectual  as  well  as  material  de 
velopment,  she  was  to  all  the  free  States  both  their 
great  example  and  highest  authority.  Hardly  anybody 
has  even  yet  fully  taken  in  all  the  permanent  good 
which  New  England  has  done  for  herself  at  home  and 
for  her  children  and  scholars  outside.  Of  course  still 
less  of  it  was  understood  in  1820.  But  in  the  Plymouth 
oration  Webster  set  forth  so  much  of  it,  the  effect  upon 
New  England  was  magical.  It  was  as  if  he  had  raised 
a  curtain  concealing  great  riches  and  treasures  of  her 
merit  and  glory,  the  existence  of  which  had  not  been 
suspected.  New  Englanders  all  fell  in  love  with  him, 
and  accorded  him  the  foremost  place  among  their 
counsellors. 

The  anti-slavery  spirit  of  the  speech  deserves  special 
notice.  I  do  not  mean  to  emphasize  the  oft-quoted  pas 
sage  denouncing  the  African  slave-trade ;  for  everybody 
in  the  south  —  even  the  smuggler  and  the  few  purchasers 
who  encouraged  him  —  had  been  against  legalizing  it, 
for  reasons  mentioned  above,  from  a  time  long  before 
the  southern  States  showed  a  desire  in  the  constitu 
tional  convention  to  stop  the  trade  at  once.  I  mean 


Webster  139 

his  mention  of  slavery  in  the  West  Indies.  I  do  not 
think  that  he  had  the  south  in  mind,  stressing  as  he 
does  the  absenteeism  of  the  masters  and  the  mortgages 
of  their  lands  for  capital  borrowed  in  England.  But 
much  else  that  he  says  of  the  evil  effects  of  slavery 
could  be  easily  applied,  at  least  in  some  measure,  to 
the  system  as  it  then  existed  in  the  south,  such  as,  for 
instance,  the  backwardness  to  make  permanent  improve 
ments  or  endow  colleges.  His  contrast  of  New  Eng 
land  with  the  West  Indies  is  intended  to  show  that  a 
free-labor  community  is  far  superior  to  a  slave-labor 
community  in  the  most  important  elements  of  a  good 
and  progressive  civilization.  His  conviction  of  this  truth 
is  serious  and  undoubting.  And  those  few  words,  "  the 
unmitigated  toil  of  slavery,"  which  show  that  he  erro 
neously  believed  that  the  slave  toiled  as  hard  as  the 
wage-earning  laborer,  evince  a  strong  moral  revulsion 
on  his  part. 

We  summarize  as  to  the  Plymouth  oration.  It  made 
Webster  really  the  political  leader  of  New  England, 
which  —  the  animosity  excited  by  the  embargo  and  the 
late  war  having  become  a  forgotten  thing  of  the  past  — 
is  now  both  in  command  of  and  also  in  the  van  of  the 
free-labor  and  anti-slavery  nationalization,  destined  by 
the  powers  to  perpetuate  the  union. 

We  have  told  you  how  Webster  —  being  at  the  time 
the  very  antipodes  of  what  he  was  afterwards  when  he 
talked  with  Bosworth  as  to  the  Rhode  Island  case  — 
missed  the  true  and  cardinal  point  in  the  Dartmouth 
college  case,  and  how  the  powers,  after  having  Marshall 
to  establish  it,  gave  all  the  glory  of  the  great  accom 
plishment  to  Webster.  We  come  now  to  Gibbons  v. 
Ogden,  argued  in  1824,  in  which  the  latter  made  far 
more  than  ample  amends  for  his  shortcoming,  and 
taught  even  the  great  Marshall  how  to  decide. 


140  The  Brothers'  War 

New  York  State  had  given  Fulton  and  Livingston  for 
a  term  exclusive  steam  navigation  of  all  its  waters,  and 
Webster  was  to  maintain  that  the  grant  impugned  the 
federal  constitution  and  was  therefore  invalid.  The 
question  was  res  Integra,  without  analogies  which  often 
help  us  forlorn  advocates  who  cannot  find  a  precedent 
and  are  utterly  without  any  literature  suggesting  the 
ratio  decidendi.  I  know  I  cannot  explain  to  a  layman 
how  such  cases  as  these  bewilder  and  paralyze  the  typi 
cal  Anglo-American  judge,  who  has  walked  all  his  life 
by  precedent  and  not  by  sight.  Further,  Webster's 
side  antagonized  prevailing  sentiment  and,  it  would  be 
hardly  too  much  to  say,  the  public  conscience ;  either 
one  of  which  generally  sways  courts  more  powerfully 
than  the  law-brief,  argument,  and  appeal  of  complete 
advocates.  The  only  thing  which  Webster  could  op 
pose  to  these  formidable  odds  was  just  a  clause  of  a 
sentence  of  the  constitution,  this  clause  being  only  of 
twelve  words  when  even  the  belonging  context  is  read 
into  it,1  and  appearing  to  be,  we  cannot  say  surplusage, 
but  neither  well-considered  nor  of  any  particular  force. 
Out  of  this  he  constructed  such  a  perfect  and  wise  doc 
trine  of  the  immunity  of  our  interstate  commerce  from 
local  attack  and  restraint  that  every  succeeding  genera 
tion  has  admired  its  wisdom  more,  and  subsequent  ad 
ditions  and  extensions  of  importance  are  all  manifest 
conclusions  from  the  premises  which  he  made  good. 

Reading  and  reflecting  for  writing  my  "  American  Law 
Studies  "  familiarized  me  with  a  few  instances  in  which  a 
man  has  left  a  lasting  impress  upon  the  development  of 
the  law  (some  of  which  instances  will  be  mentioned  in  a 
moment).  Thus  I  was  led  to  meditate  Webster's  work 
in  this  case ;  and  it  becomes  an  increasing  wonder  to 

1  The  twelve  words  meant  are,  "  The  congress  shall  have  power  to 
regulate  commerce  among  the  several  States." 


Webster  141 

me.  Read  what  his  biographer  tells  of  the  unfavorable 
circumstances  of  the  preparation  for  the  argument  and 
how  he  overcame  them  by  superhuman  effort.  Read 
also  his  own  account  as  given  by  Harvey,  how  Wirt, 
his  associate,  older  and  of  much  more  experience  in 
that  court,  disparaged  the  ground  upon  which  he  said 
he  should  stand,  and  proposed  another ;  and  how  Mar 
shall  drank  in  every  word  of  Webster's  argument,  and 
afterwards  virtually  reproduced  it  in  the  opinion. 

But  the  great  thing  is  what  he  did  for  the  law.  The 
current  distribution  of  the  common  law  under  its  larger 
heads  was  made  by  Hale  and  Blackstone  after  that  of 
the  contemporary  civilians,  which  is  founded  upon  that 
of  the  Institutes  of  Justinian.  This  book  is  but  a  repro 
duction  of  that  of  Gaius.  So  we  may  assert  of  this  last 
mentioned  author  that  it  is  his  systematization  which 
still  obtains  both  in  the  English  and  Roman  law,  that  is 
to  say,  the  entire  law  of  the  enlightened  world.1  A  few 
English  chancellors  perceptibly  moulded  equity;  Mans 
field  almost  created  English  commercial  law;  in  our 
country,  Hamilton,  in  one  argument  overturned  the 
doctrine  of  tacking  securities,  and  in  another  remade 
the  essentials  of  libel;  our  great  text-author  Bishop, 
with  his  treatise  often  worked  over  in  new  editions,  is 
really  the  enacter  of  the  American  law  of  divorce ;  and 
Marshall's  additions  to  our  federal  law  will  never  be 
forgotten.  By  what  he  did  in  Gibbons  v.  Ogden,  Web 
ster  has  won  a  proud  place  in  the  small  company  of 
great  law-givers. 

And  he  is  entitled  to  a  liberal  share  of  the  glory 
which  the  Dartmouth  college  decision  has  won,  for 
without  him  Marshall  would  have  had  no  opportunity. 

To  estimate  the  prodigious  effect  of  the   rulings  in 

1  Huschke  ought  to  have  stated  this  fact  at  page  19  of  his  edit^n  of 
Gaius,  in  order  to  give  the  latter  his  full  posthumous  glory. 


142  The  Brothers*  War 

these  two  cases,  try  to  realize  to  yourself  what  would 
be  the  consequences  to  American  trade  and  commerce 
if  the  States  were  not  effectually  kept  from  infringing 
contracts  or  granting  monopolies  of  transportation.  Try 
to  realize  the  loss,  the  inconvenience,  the  trouble,  the 
vexation,  all  the  evil  that  would  have  unavoidably 
befallen  us  if  these  two  companion  decisions  and  the 
subsequent  ones  following  them  as  precedents  or  ex 
tending  them  as  analogies,  had  not  made  practically  the 
whole  of  American  inland  business  a  unit  —  to  use  Web 
ster's  word  —  under  the  protection  everywhere  of  the 
same  impartial  law.  The  longer  you  think  it  over  the 
more  confirmed  will  be  your  opinion  that  from  no  other 
cause  has  the  evolution  away  from  the  old  independence 
of  States  towards  a  permanent  union  and  a  single  organ 
ism  of  perpetually  federated  communities  been  more 
furthered.  The  unification  of  production  and  distribu 
tion  thus  given  resistless  impulse  has  almost  of  itself 
alone  worked  the  unification  of  all  our  States.  So  look 
ing  back  from  the  standpoint  of  to-day  we  may  be  sure 
that  the  powers  had  Webster  by  his  accomplishment  in 
the  cases  now  in  mind,  to  build  for  perpetual  union  far 
better  than  he  knew. 

It  needs  not  to  dwell  upon  the  Bunker  Hill  oration, 
made  June  17,  1825.  It  is,  as  I  believe,  the  most  famil 
iar  as  a  whole  of  all  speeches  to  Americans.  It  did  not 
stop  with  adding  greatly  to  the  influence  he  had  won 
over  New  England  by  the  Plymouth  oration ;  it  revealed 
him  to  the  whole  country  as  its  supreme  orator.  Bear 
in  mind  its  theme,  remembering  how  large  a  part  the 
battle  of  Bunker  Hill  was  in  founding  our  union. 

The  plainest  manifestation  that  providence  ever  made 
of  its  favoritism  to  Webster  was  its  having  Adams  and 
Jefferson  both  to  die  on  the  same  day  of  all  the  year 
the  most  commemorative  of  each.  By  the  eulogy  of 


Webster  143 

the  two  patriots  which  Webster  made  the  next  month 
he  attained  the  height  of  his  popular  celebrity.  His 
subject  was  no  longer  one  that  principally  concerned 
New  England  and  the  north,  but  it  was  the  co-opera 
tion  of  both  sections  in  making  the  United  States. 
Slowly,  but  surely,  he  has  climbed  to  the  top  of  author 
ity,  whence  he  ever  draws  audience  and  attention  from 
north  and  south,  both  in  the  present  and  for  ages  after 
the  brothers'  war. 

These  three  popular  speeches  just  noticed  are  unique 
in  oratory,  not  in  their  general  character,  but  in  the 
nobility  of  the  subjects,  the  ripeness  of  the  occasion, 
the  profound  wisdom  of  treatment,  and  the  extraordi 
nary  elevation  and  perfection  of  style. 

Another  stage  begins  in  1830  with  the  reply  to  Hayne. 
What  Webster  says  therein,  recommending  brotherly 
love  between  the  sections,  and  commending  the  union, 
he  reproduced  with  grateful  variation  in  many  memo 
rable  passages  of  later  speeches.  The  original  and 
reproductions  are  the  most  precious  gems  of  our  litera 
ture,  ranking  in  excellence  even  above  Poe's  poetry, 
America's  best. 

The  speech  of  1833  against  Calhoun's  nullification 
resolutions,  that  which  won  for  Webster  the  cognomen, 
The  Expounder  of  the  Constitution,  belongs  to  the  next 
succeeding  stage,  wherein  he  rose  from  supreme  pane 
gyric  to  invincible  defence  of  the  union.  As  we  have 
already  given  in  a  former  chapter  this  performance 
its  due  praise,  we  need  not  say  more  of  it. 

This  chapter  would  not  be  complete  if  we  failed  to 
glance  at  the  essentials  of  Webster's  greatness  as  an 
orator,  and  to  point  out  the  means  used  by  the  powers 
to  give  him  his  extraordinary  excellence.  He  did  not 
stale  himself  by  discussing  trivial  matters.  When  he 
rose,  people  knew  that  he  had  an  important  message, 


144  The  Brothers'  War 

and  they  ought  to  attend.  In  harmony  with  this  was 
his  uniform  seriousness,  gravity,  and  becoming  dignity 
of  manner;  and  even  in  his  merry-making  humor,  as  in 
stanced  in  describing  Hayne  leading  the  South  Carolina 
militia,  he  never  stooped.  He  spoke  to  the  sound  com 
mon  sense  and  the  regnant  conscience  of  the  masses. 
His  propositions,  his  illustrations,  his  argument  went 
home  without  effort  to  every  one  who  thought  at  all 
and  who  cared  for  moral  virtue.  The  entire  country  has 
heard  with  great  acceptance  that  Davy  Crockett  said  to 
him,  "  Mr.  Webster,  you  are  not  the  great  orator  people 
say  you  are ;  for  I  heard  your  speech,  and  I  understood 
every  word  of  it."  Whether  this  be  an  invention  or  not, 
it  well  characterizes  his  easy  intelligibility.  Herbert 
Spencer  could  have  exampled  the  main  proposition  of 
his  able  essay  on  style  by  Webster's  best  efforts,  and 
every  part  and  parcel  of  them  —  statement  of  proposi 
tion,  necessary  explanation  and  narrative,  distinctions, 
illustrations,  reasoning,  invocation  of  feeling,  appeal  to 
the  sense  of. justice.  I  often  feel  that  he  is  not  more 
majestic  in  any  particular  than  the  always  manifest 
meaning  of  what  he  says.  In  this  he  reminds  of  Bacon. 
He  chose  only  the  most  important  subjects ;  he  be- 
fittingly  addressed  always  the  higher  nature  of  his 
hearers ;  and  he  always  spoke  with  a  transparent  clear 
ness.  But  all  this  does  not  indicate  more  than  the  mere 
beginning  of  true  eloquence.  The  greatest  teachers — • 
those  who  win  and  keep  the  admiration  of  the  world 
—  have,  as  their  worshippers  teach  us,  gifts  of  expression 
commensurate  with  the  desert  of  their  communications. 
Remember  Homer,  Plato,  Demosthenes,  Vergil,  Cicero, 
Dante,  Bacon,  Goethe,  and  above  all  Shakspeare.  As 
the  reader  hangs  over  them  he  becomes  more  and  more 
unconscious  of  what  we  call,  rather  vaguely,  their  style. 
Their  diction,  in  unhackneyed  use  of  hackneyed  words,  in 


Webster  145 

metaphors  that  flash  like  electric  sparks,  in  appropriate 
ness  of  varied  rhythm,  and  all  appertaining  jewels,  be 
comes  to  him  but  a  belonging  of  the  much  more 
precious  sense.  As  it  must  impart  that  without  impedi 
ment  it  is  unconsciously  made  as  like  it  as  the  protecting 
coloring  of  animals  is  made  like  that  of  the  objects 
amidst  which  they  lurk.  There  has  been  but  one  other 
which  admits  of  comparison  in  world-wide  secular  im 
portance  with  Webster's  theme  —  that  which  inspired 

"  Tu  regere  imperio  populos,  Romane,  memento." 

We  have  learned  how  the  y£neid  was  prized  above  all 
other  poetry,  not  only  by  the  Romans  themselves,  but, 
long  after  they  had  become  a  mere  name  and  memory, 
by  the  different  nations  of  Europe.  Plainly  it  was  be 
cause  Vergil,  in  that  "  stateliest  measure  ever  moulded 
by  the  lips  of  man,"  had  fitly  celebrated  the  greatest 
factor  delivering  from  barbarism,  and  spreading  civiliza 
tion  abroad,  that  had  yet  appeared  in  history,  —  the 
Roman  empire.  The  American  union,  immeasurably 
exceeding  that  empire  in  immediate  good  to  millions  at 
home,  and  in  fair  promise  to  all  the  earth,  was  Webster's 
subject.  It  got  from  him  an  appropriate  style.  The 
variety  of  ornament  in  his  language  reaches  all  the  way 
from  the  modest  violets  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  common  to 
Bunyan  and  King  James's  version,  up  to  the  most  gor 
geous  trappings  which  are  part  and  parcel  of  the  sense 
in  the  best  passages  of  Paradise  Lost.  There  is  also  a 
variety  of  idiom.  He  uses  that  of  the  field  or  street,  or 
of  the  gentleman  or  of  the  scholar,  as  best  suits.  He 
affected  short  sentences,  and  also  pure  English  words. 
He  told  Davis  to  weed  the  Latin  words  out  of  his  speech 
on  Adams  and  Jefferson.  But  when  occasion  calls  he 
can  revel  in  that  latinity  of  our  tongue  which,  as  De 
Quincey  has  noted,  becomes  intense  with  Shakspeare, 

10 


146  The  Brothers'  War 

when  he  is  soaring  his  strongest.  If  you  are  inclined  to 
dispute  this,  look  over  the  last  two  sentences  of  the  re 
ply  to  Hayne.  How  you  would  lower  this  sublime  pero 
ration  into  the  dust,  if  you  replaced  the  Latin  with  native 
derivatives,  or  changed  the  long  for  short  sentences  in 
what  is  now  above  all  example  in  English  or  American 
oratory,  and  can  be  paralleled  in  structure,  "  ocean-roll 
of  rhythm,"  and  exquisite  words  only  by  the  most 
famous  paragraphs  of  Cicero  and  Livy.  As  our  last 
word  here,  Webster  always  imparts  the  wisest  counsel 
as  to  the  American  union  in  phrase  all-golden,  and  his 
eloquence  is  entitled  to  praise  beyond  all  other,  because 
it  is  always  what  his  high  subject  demands. 

As  I  have  to  do  mainly  with  the  permanent  and  last 
ing  in  Webster,  I  can  merely  allude  to  his  physical 
endowments,  described  with  such  rapture  by  March, 
Choate,  and  many  others  of  his  time,  and  well  summa 
rized  by  Mr.  Lodge.  I  must  remind  the  reader  how  it 
accorded  with  the  purpose  of  the  powers  to  bestow  upon 
their  favorite  majesty  of  form,  mien,  and  look,  a  voice 
that  suggested  the  music  of  the  spheres,  action  that 
would  have  been  a  model  to  Demosthenes ;  in  short,  a 
physique  for  the  orator  superior  to  any  on  record. 
These  things  helped  him  mightily  in  his  day. 

Apparently  I  finished  with  Webster's  education  some 
pages  back  of  this.  But  the  more  important  part  of  it 
lias  not  as  yet  been  touched  upon;  and  it  is  incumbent 
upon  me  to  tell  it,  because  of  the  lesson  we  ought  to 
learn  from  it. 

The  largest  and  most  characterizing  part  of  our  edu 
cation  —  perhaps  it  would  more  accurately  express  my 
meaning  to  say  our  culture  —  each  one  of  us  gets  from 
his  associations,  from  his  contact  with  the  people  of  all 
sorts  around  him  in  his  infancy,  boyhood,  and  manhood 
often  as  far  on  as  middle  age,  if  not  sometimes  farther. 


Webster  1 47 

We  get  it  by  imitation,  unconscious  and  conscious,  and 
by  absorption  from  what  we  see,  hear,  and  read,  etc., 
which  absorption  is  often  most  active  when  we  are  least 
aware  of  it.  Now  let  us  consider  the  community  of 
which  Webster  was  the  product. 

In  the  Plymouth  oration,  as  we  have  already  sug 
gested,  he  exhibits  the  exceptional  progress  and  acqui 
sitions  of  New  England.  What  other  community  ever 
showed  greater  courage  against  danger  or  greater  en 
ergy  against  obstacles,  and  such  wise  building-up  of  a 
new  country  in  a  strange  land?  The  Pilgrim  Fathers 
could  not  have  liberty  and  their  own  religion  at  home, 
and  for  these  they  went  into  the  wilderness.  There 
they  kept  the  savage  at  bay.  With  soil  and  climate 
both  unfavorable  they  wrought  out  general  plenty  and 
comfort.  They  prospered  in  industry.  They  equalized 
as  far  as  they  could  all  in  property  rights.  And  these 
liberty-lovers  gave  the  regulation  of  local  affairs  to  the 
town  meeting,  of  which  Webster  says :  "  Nothing  can 
exceed  the  utility  of  these  little  bodies.  They  are  so 
many  councils  or  parliaments,  in  which  common  inter 
ests  are  discussed,  and  useful  knowledge  acquired  and 
communicated." 

Jefferson,  the  great  apostle  of  popular  self-govern 
ment,  most  earnestly  longed  to  see  all  America  outside 
of  New  England  divided  into  such  townships  as  hers. 

But  to  return  to  the  Pilgrims.  They  established 
schools  and  churches  everywhere.  Free  education  was 
maintained  by  taxation  of  all  property. 

Let  us  sum  up.  Here  was  a  country  in  which  every 
body  had  been  well  trained  in  the  available  ways  of  self- 
support  and  also  of  saving  and  accumulating,  —  the  very 
first  essential  to  make  good  citizens.  Such  citizens  were 
required  to  administer  their  public  affairs  themselves; 
and  thus  they  received  the  very  best  political  education 


148  The  Brothers'  War 

and  training  in  a  school  of  genuine  democracy,  —  which 
is  the  next  essential.  The  children  of  each  generation 
were  schooled  better  than  those  of  the  former,  the  col 
leges  and  universities  constantly  did  better  with  the 
students,  and  libraries  open  to  the  public  both  multi 
plied  and  enlarged,  —  the  third  essential.  And  educa 
tion  and  business  were  rationally  mixed,  until  in  Web 
ster's  time  it  might  be  said  with  truth  that  the  average 
New  Englander  worked  with  a  will,  and  wisely,  every 
day  to  maintain  himself  and  family,  and  also  found  leis 
ure  to  add  something  of  value  to  his  store  of  knowledge. 
Here  is  another  essential.  The  moral  and  religious  at 
mosphere  became  purer  and  purer,  and  more  and  more 
on  all  sides  good  intention  was  conspicuous  in  the  light, 
and  evil  intention  hid  itself  deep  in  the  dark.  This  is 
the  last  essential. 

The  foregoing  is  made  up  from  the  Plymouth  oration. 
Webster  was  too  near  to  discern  all  the  intellectual  and 
moral  advancement  and  the  opulent  future  promise  of 
his  own  community,  the  proper  fruit  of  the  conditions 
just  summarized.1  Let  us  indicate  by  only  such  a  pau 
city  of  examples  as  we  have  room  for.  Able  and  fully 
furnished  lawyers  everywhere.  Think  of  Story,  a  most 

1  We  support  our  statement  in  this  sentence  by  quoting  below  in  this 
footnote  two  passages  which  stand  a  page  or  two  apart  in  the  Plymouth 
oration,  italicizing  one  word  in  the  former,  and  one  word  and  a  clause  in 
the  other,  which,  if  Webster  had  taken  accurate  note  of  the  intellectual 
ferment  then  active  throughout  all  New  England,  he  would  have  made 
much  stronger: 

"  We  may  flatter  ourselves  that  the  means  of  education  at  present 
enjoyed  in  New  England  are  not  only  adequate  to  the  diffusion  of  the 
elements  of  knowledge  among  all  classes,  but  sufficient  also  for  respect 
able  attainments  in  literature  and  the  sciences." 

"  With  nothing  in  our  past  history  to  discourage  us,  and  with  some 
thing  in  our  present  condition  and  prospects  to  animate  us,  let  us  hope, 
that,  as  it  is  our  fortune  to  live  in  an  age  when  we  may  behold  a  wonder 
ful  advancement  of  the  country  in  all  its  other  great  interests,  ive  may  see 
also  equal  progress  and  success  attend  the  cause  of  letters" 


Webster  149 

diligently  attending  judge  and  one  of  the  best;  also 
finding  time  both  to  be  the  first  law  professor  and  most 
fertile  and  eminent  author  of  the  age,  exhausting  Eng 
lish  and  American  sources  and  authority  in  his  books, 
and  crowding  them  with  a  civil  law  learning  to  be  sur 
passed  only  by  that  of  the  Roman  jurists  of  Germany; 
let  Ticknor,  whom  we  may  call  the  founder  of  the  post 
classical  school  of  literature  in  our  country,  suggest  the 
students  of  modern  languages  who  followed  in  an  illus 
trious  line,  —  let  him  suggest  also  the  famous  historians, 
such  as  Prescott,  Bancroft,  Hildreth,  Motley,  Parkman, 
really  representatives  of  the  school  just  mentioned,  using 
methods  that  got  into  the  American  air  first  from  Tick 
nor;  let  Channing  suggest  the  pulpit,  —  Channing,  who 
raised  religion  from  the  gloom  of  dogma  and  orthodoxy 
into  a  life  of  angelic  joy;  what  can  one  say  to  describe 
Emerson  in  a  breath,  — the  teacher  to  us  all  of  fit  aspi 
ration,  right  thinking,  noble  expression,  the  highest  vir 
tue  and  truest  religion,  and  who  lived,  as  Dr.  Heber 
Newton  has  lately  told,  the  most  perfect  of  lives  as  a 
man  ;  Hawthorne,  showing  the  world  sick  with  its  yearn 
ing  for  moral  redemption  that  even  a  disgraced,  lone, 
and  friendless  woman  can  by  a  subsequent  life  of  unre 
served  confession,  purity,  and  love  to  her  neighbors 
turn  a  horrible  brand  of  guilt  into  a  jewel  more  pre 
cious  and  brilliant  than  diamond,  —  how  his  consum 
mate  achievement  rebukes  the  sixty  years'  dilatoriness 
of  Goethe  over  his  unfinished  Faust;  and  divine  poets, 
Whittier,  Longfellow,  Lowell,  and  Holmes,  —  the  last 
two  conspicuous  in  letters,  Lowell  being  in  my  judg 
ment  the  greatest  American  man  of  letters;  I  have  said 
nothing  of  the  statesmen  and  orators,  beginning  with 
Fisher  Ames  and  John  Adams,  —  and  there  are  others 
in  every  high  round  of  the  intellectual  life  known  all 
over  the  land  whose  names  I  must  omit. 


150  The  Brothers'  War 

In  this  enumeration  I  have  intentionally  looked  some 
what  forward ;  for  what  is  in  one  particular  generation 
you  cannot  find  out  until  its  effects  are  plain  in  the  next. 
I  want  to  accentuate  it  that  Webster  belonged  to  a  soci 
ety  which  had  made  some  of  the  extraordinary  figures 
whose  names  are  given,  and  was  making  the  rest  of 
them.  When  the  view  just  suggested  has  been  taken, 
and  if  in  comparing  New  England  with  any  other  com 
munity —  even  with  Athens,  Florence,  England,  or  Ger 
many,  in  their  best  eras  —  periods  of  time  be  equalized 
and  differences  of  population  be  properly  allowed  for, 
it  will  appear  that  the  conditions  moulding  Webster 
were  more  energetic  in  productivity  than  can  be  found 
elsewhere.  And  if,  in  this  comparison,  the  relative  gen 
eral  condition  of  the  masses  in  each  community  be  duly 
taken  into  the  account,  the  result  will  be  far  more  favor 
able  to  New'England  ;  for  a  high  level  of  the  masses  is  a 
much  better  proof  of  a  fecund  culture  than  merely  many 
striking  individual  instances. 

Thus  we  bring  out  the  point  that  Webster  was  born, 
grew  up,  and  lived  in  a  nursery  prolific  in  men  and 
women  of  extraordinary  powers  and  virtues.  How  in 
significant  is  the  muster-roll  of  any  other  part  of  our 
country !  I  compare  that  of  the  south  because  I  am 
familiar  with  it,  and  one  can  with  better  manners  dis 
parage  his  own  section  than  another.  The  ante-bellum 
southern  treasures  of  art  and  literature  except  speeches, 
political  and  forensic,  can  be  counted  on  the  fingers 
of  one  hand  without  taking  them  all.  The  poetry  of 
Poe,  a  few  essays  of  Legare,  especially  that  on  Demos 
thenes,  Calhoun's  Dissertation  on  Government,  and 
Toombs's  Tremont  Temple  lecture,  are  all  that  are  pre 
eminent;  and  some  of  the  historians  of  our  literature 
insist  that  Poe  was  southern  only  in  his  prejudices,  and 
not  in  his  making.  To  turn  away  from  authors,  how 


Webster  1 5 1 

few  can  be  found  to  compare  in  education,  polish,  and 
literary  or  scientific  accomplishments  with  average  New 
Englanders  of  their  several  professions  or  occupations. 
Toombs,  in  the  diamond-like  brilliance  of  his  extempore 
effusion  in  talks  or  speeches,  is  as  solitary  in  the  south 
as  Catullus,  the  greatest  of  the  spontaneous  poets  of  his 
nation,  was  in  the  Rome  of  his  day. 

Webster  absorbed  and  absorbed,  assimilated  and  as 
similated,  all  the  better  elements  of  this  marvellous  New 
England  culture,  which  I  am  painfully  conscious  of  hav 
ing  most  insufficiently  described  above,  until  at  last  he 
mounted  its  eminences  in  his  profession,  in  the  politics 
of  democracy,  aesthetic  taste,  and  especially  statesmanly 
eloquence.  So  assured  was  his  stand  upon  these  emi 
nences  that  all  the  wisest  and  most  refined  of  the  sec 
tion  spontaneously  and  involuntarily  did  him  obeisance, 
recognizing  in  him  their  ideal  of  wisdom  and  counsel 
befittingly  expressed.  We  can  stop  to  give  only  two 
examples.  Edward  Everett  is  the  one  American  master 
of  grand  rhetoric.  He  heard  the  reply  to  Hayne,  and, 
as  he  says,  he  could  not  but  be  reminded  throughout 
of  Demosthenes'  making  the  unrivalled  crown  oration. 
Choate,  profoundly  versed  in  the  law,  the  incomparable 
forensic  advocate  and  popular  speaker,  daily  flying 
higher  with  inspiration  drawn  from  Demosthenes  and 
Cicero  —  he  poured  out  his  admiration  in  many  utter 
ances  that  have  already  become  classic.  Webster  was 
made  in  and  by  New  England,  and  not  for  herself  alone. 
The  toast,  "  Daniel  Webster,  —  the  gift  of  New  England 
to  his  country,  his  whole  country,  and  nothing  but  his 
country,"  to  which  he  responded  December  22,  1843, 
tells  but  the  truth.  No  American  other  than  a  New 
Englander  ever  had  what  one  may  term  such  a  greatness 
breeding  environment  as  he.  And  passing  in  review  all 
the  famous  children  of  those  famous  six  States,  whether 


152  The  Brothers'  War 

they  spent  their  lives  at  home  as  Choate,  or  developed 
elsewhere  as  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  it  is  my  decided 
opinion  that  Daniel  Webster  as  fruit  and  example  of  her 
culture  is  New  England's  greatest  glory. 

There  remain  now  but  a  few  prominences  of  Webster 
for  me  to  touch  upon. 

His  speech  of  March  7,  1850,  was  fiercely  denounced 
by  the  root-and-branch  abolitionists.  Horace  Mann 
called  him  a  fallen  Lucifer.  Sumner  charged  him  with 
apostasy.  Giddings  said  he  had  struck  "  a  blow  against 
freedom  and  the  constitutional  rights  of  the  free  States 
which  no  southern  arm  could  have  given."  Theodore 
Parker  could  think  of  no  comparable  deed  of  any  other 
New  Englander  except  the  treachery  of  Benedict  Arnold. 
Whittier  condemned  him  to  everlasting  obloquy  in  a 
lofty  lyric,  which  from  its  very  title  of  one  word  through 
out  was  reprobation  more  stinging  than  the  world- 
known  lampoon  of  Catullus  against  Julius  Caesar.  The 
effect  of  this  tempest  has  not  yet  all  died  out;  and  in 
many  quarters  of  the  north  Webster  is  still  regarded  as 
a  renegade.  His  defenders,  however,  multiply  and  be 
come  more  earnest  and  strong.  Let  us  consider  this 
speech  with  the  serenity  and  riper  judgment  which 
should  mark  the  historical  writer  of  to-day. 

First  and  foremost  let  us  grasp  the  wide  difference  of 
the  situation  from  that  at  the  beginning  of  1833.  Then, 
the  question  was  only  remotely  a  pro-slavery  or  southern 
one.  A  southern  president,  the  most  popular  American, 
of  great  firmness  of  purpose  and  extraordinary  courage, 
had  taken  a  decided  stand  against  the  movement  of  one 
southern  State  hostile  to  the  general  government,  —  a 
stand  the  more  decided  because  he  cordially  hated 
Calhoun,  who  was  leading  the  movement.  The  south 
ern  leaders  outside  of  that  State  did  not  approve  of  nul 
lification;  most  of  them  believing  it  was  an  absurdity 


Webster  1 5  3 

for  a  State  to  contend  she  could  stay  in  the  union  and 
at  the  same  time  rightfully  refuse  to  perform  a  condi 
tion  of  that  union.  It  seemed  that  no  southern  State 
except  Virginia  would  stand  by  South  Carolina  in  the 
event  of  a  collision  between  her  and  the  United  States. 
We  can  well  understand  that  Webster  could  then  see 
no  danger  to  the  cause  he  loved  above  all  others,  that 
is,  the  union,  in  uncompromisingly  demanding  that  the 
revenue  be  collected,  and  with  force  if  necessary. 

Nullification  was  palpably  unjustifiable,  even  under 
the  doctrine  prevalent  in  the  south.  We  have  explained 
how  Calhoun's  extreme  desire  for  peaceable  remedies 
only,  led  him  to  champion  this  illogical  measure.  The 
theory  of  State  sovereignty  demanded  that,  instead  of 
the  nullification  ordinance,  South  Carolina  pass  an  ordi 
nance  of  secession,  conditioned  to  commence  its  opera 
tion  at  a  stated  time  if  the  objectionable  duties  had  not 
been  repealed.  The  situation  in  1833  was  that  all  the 
north  and  nearly  all  of  the  south  were  arrayed  under  a 
southern  leader  against  only  one  southern  State,  mak 
ing  a  demand  which  was  plainly  untenable  in  either 
one  of  the  two  differing  schools  of  constitutional  con 
struction. 

But  the  situation,  in  1850,  was  a  south  solidly  united, 
not  upon  such  an  obvious  heresy  as  nullification,  but 
aroused  as  one  man  to  protect  the  very  underpinning  of 
its  social  structure.  It  was  standing  confidently  upon 
the  doctrine  of  State  sovereignty,  which,  as  the  histori 
cal  records  all  showed,  was  the  creed  of  the  generation, 
both  north  and  south,  that  made  the  constitution.  As 
we  have  already  told,  Calhoun  in  1833  probably  con 
vinced  Webster  that  the  States  were  sovereign.  That 
did  not  mean  that  the  force-bill  was  wrong ;  it  meant 
only  that  if  SoutH  Carolina  chose,  she  could  rightfully 
secede.  And  we  may  say  that  this  great  argument  of 


154  The  Brothers'  War 

Calhoun,  demolishing  as  it  does  the  premises  of  Webster, 
was  really  irrelevant,  for  it  did  notsupport  his  own  prop 
osition.  Now  in  1850,  as  Webster  saw  it,  the  south  was 
justified  by  the  constitution,  however  foolish  might  be 
her  policy,  and  he  was  too  conscientious  to  oppose  what 
he  believed  right  and  just.  In  addition  to  this  claim  by 
the  south  of  State  sovereignty  as  abstractly  right,  his 
conscience  told  him  that  some  of  her  practical  demands 
were  just.  It  had  been  provided  not  only  that  all  of 
Texas  south  of  36°  30'  be  admitted  with  slavery,  but 
further  that  four  other  States  be  made  out  of  the  same 
territory.  Although  Webster  was  a  free-soiler  from 
first  to  last,  his  conscience  told  him  peremptorily  that 
the  only  honest  course  of  congress  as  to  the  provision 
mentioned,  which  was  really  a  solemn  contract  with 
Texas,  was  to  perform  the  contract  in  good  faith.  This 
advice,  of  course,  aroused  the  ire  of  the  abolitionists,  who 
had  united  upon  the  position  that  no  other  slave  State 
should  ever  be  admitted  into  the  union.  And  he  boldly 
said  that  the  south  was  right  in  her  complaint  that  there 
was  disinclination  both  among  individuals  and  public 
authorities  at  the  north  to  execute  the  fugitive  slave 
law.  Meditate  these  serious  words : 

"  I  desire  to  call  the  attention  of  all  sober-minded  men  at  the 
north,  of  all  conscientious  men,  of  all  men  who  are  not  carried 
away  by  some  fanatical  idea  or  some  false  impression,  to  their 
constitutional  obligations.  I  put  it  to  all  the  sober  and  sound 
minds  at  the  north  as  a  question  of  morals  and  a  question  of 
conscience,  What  right  have  they,  in  their  legislative  capacity 
or  any  other  capacity,  to  endeavor  to  get  round  this  constitu 
tion,  or  to  embarrass  the  free  exercise  of  the  rights  secured  by 
the  constitution  to  the  persons  whose  slaves  escape  from  them? 
None  at  all ;  none  at  all.  Neither  in  the  forum  of  conscience, 
nor  before  the  face  of  the  constitution,  are  they,  in  my  opinion, 
justified  in  such  an  attempt." 


Webster  155 

I  must  believe  that  as  time  rolls  on  the  outcry  against 
this  position  of  Webster's,  so  unshakably  founded  in 
conscience  and  reason  as  the  position  is,  must  not  only 
cease,  but  turn  to  words  of  praise  and  commendation. 
The  northern  fanatics  who  tried  to  abolish  slavery  by 
repudiating  such  solemn  contracts  as  the  resolution  of 
March  i,  1845,  respecting  the  admission  of  Texas,  and 
the  fugitive  slave  restoration  clause  of  the  federal  consti 
tution,  while  purposing  to  stay  in  the  union,  were  just  as 
morally  wrong  as  were  the  southern  fanatics  who  pro 
posed  to  stay  in  the  union  and  enjoy  its  benefits  and  not 
pay  the  taxes  necessary  for  its  maintenance. 

One  other  passage  of  this  speech  has  been  strongly 
attacked.  Webster  opposed  applying  the  Wilmot  pro 
viso  to  California  and  New  Mexico,  where,  as  he  said, 
"  the  law  of  nature,  of  physical  geography,  the  law  of 
the  formation  of  the  earth  .  .  .  settles  forever  with  a 
strength  beyond  all  terms  of  human  enactment,  that 
slavery  cannot  exist."  To  apply  the  proviso  would  be, 
as  he  added,  to  "  take  pains  uselessly  to  reaffirm  an 
ordinance  of  nature,"  and  "  to  re-enact  the  will  of  God  ; " 
and  its  insertion  in  a  Territorial  government  bill  would 
be  "  for  the  mere  purpose  of  a  taunt  or  reproach." 
Mr.  Lodge,  reprehending  most  severely,  confidently  as 
serts  that  though  these  Territories  were  not  suited  to 
slave  agriculture,  yet  that  their  many  and  rich  mines 
could  have  been  profitably  worked  by  slaves.1  He 
stresses  the  fact  that  certain  slave  owners  declared  that 
they  would,  if  they  could,  so  work  these  mines.  This 
distinguished  author  is  to  be  reminded  of  how  cheaply 
Seius  could  replace  any  one  of  his  slaves  that  he  worked 
to  death  in  Ilva's  mines.  Let  him  re-read  the  Captivi  of 
Plautus,  —  not  to  mention  many  other  ancient  records 
just  as  instructive,  —  and  realize  that  in  that  time  it  was 

1  Daniel  Webster,  318-321. 


156  The  Brothers'  War 

not  only  one  race  that  furnished  slaves,  but  that  every 
free  human  being  was  in  lifelong  danger  of  falling  to  a 
master.  The  prisoners  taken  in  the  incessant  wars  kept 
the  slave  markets  glutted.  A  few  months'  work  of  one 
of  his  slaves  would  bring  the  master  enough  to  pay  the 
purchase  money  and  leave  a  considerable  sum  to  his 
credit  with  the  banker.  The  Spaniards  worked  their 
mines  with  Indians  to  be  had  for  the  catching  in  near-by 
places.  And  Mr.  Lodge  mentions  mining  with  the  labor 
of  criminals  and  serfs.  In  all  the  instances  that  he  has 
in  mind  the  worker  can  be  had  for  his  keep  or  a  little 
more  than  that.  But  to  have  mined  with  the  slaves  of 
the  south,  —  that  was  widely  different.  There  was  no 
way  to  get  such  a  slave  except  to  rear  or  hire  or  buy 
him  in  a  protected  market.  Does  Mr.  Lodge  indeed  be 
lieve  that  Seius  would  have  permitted  his  eight  hundred 
slaves  to  sicken  in  the  mines  of  Ilva  if  each  one  had  been 
worth  at  least  $1,000  in  the  market?  Really  the  lead 
ing  industry  of  the  south  was  slave  rearing.  The  profit 
was  in  keeping  the  slaves  healthy  and  rapidly  multiply 
ing.  This  could  be  done  at  little  expense  in  agricul 
ture,  where  even  the  light  workers  were  made  to  support 
themselves.  But  had  a  planter  gone  into  a  mining  sec 
tion,  where  he  could  get  no  land,  for  corn  to  feed  his 
slaves  and  stock,  and  for  cotton  to  bring  him  money, 
he  would  have  found  no  margin  of  profit  whatever 
in  mining.  I  was  reared  in  the  gold-bearing  district 
of  Georgia.  I  can  remember  old  Mr.  John  Wynne,  a 
wealthy  cotton  planter  living  in  Oglethorpe  county, 
some  six  or  seven  miles  from  my  father's,  who,  when  — 
to  use  plantation  parlance  —  he  had  laid  by  his  crop  at 
the  middle  or  end  of  July,  would  work  his  gold  mine 
until  cotton-picking  became  brisk  about  the  middle  of 
September.  He  made  money  out  of  his  gold  mine,  with 
out  injuring  his  other  far  more  valuable  mine,  that  is,  the 


Webster  157 

natural  increase  of  his  negroes.  And  I  heard  of  other 
such  mine  workers.  But  you  could  not  have  tempted 
one  of  these  shrewd  business  men  to  settle  with  his 
slaves  outside  of  a  cotton-making  district  in  order  to 
mine.  Had  either  Mr.  Clingman  or  Mr.  Mason  —  men 
tioned  by  Mr.  Lodge  —  made  the  trial,  he  would  have 
soon  returned  to  his  old  neighborhood  a  sadder  and 
wiser  man. 

The  negro's  work  as  a  slave  in  the  coal  and  iron 
mines  of  the  south  never  commenced  until  after  the 
thirteenth  amendment  freed  him.  Since  then  he  has 
done  much  cruelly  hard  work  as  servus  poenae  —  a  slave 
of  punishment  —  in  these  mines,  for  convict  lessees,  hav 
ing  no  other  interest  in  him  than  to  get  all  the  labor 
possible  during  his  term. 

So  it  is  clear  that  Webster,  in  contending  that  the 
conditions  in  these  Territories  were  prohibitive  of 
slavery  was  as  statesmanly  and  perspicacious  as  he 
was  generally  in  other  matters. 

His  detractors  charged  that  the  entire  speech  was  a 
bid  for  the  support  of  the  south  in  his  eager  struggle 
for  the  presidency.  That  he  passionately  longed  for 
the  chair  was  manifest.  But  his  was  not  the  sordid 
ambition  of  the  professional  place-hunter.  He  had  a 
heaven-reaching  aspiration  to  show  America  what  a 
president  should  be  in  those  angry  times.  He  must 
have  been  conscious  that  he  was  the  only  man  of  gifts 
to  do  the  great  deed.  What  an  appropriate  climax  that 
would  have  been  for  the  invincible  defender  of  the  union, 
who,  when  replying  to  Hayne  twenty  years  before,  had 
outsoared  Pindar  in  eulogizing  South  Carolina  leading 
the  south,  and  Massachusetts  leading  the  north,  in  the 
same  breath;  and  who,  neither  from  prepossession  in 
favor  of  his  native  community  or  resentment  because  of 
attack  upon  it  by  those  of  the  other  section,  had  ever 


158  The  Brothers'  War 

been  removed  out  of  brotherly  love  for  all  his  country 
men  alike.  If  you  can  do  an  all-important  thing  for 
your  fellows  which  you  believe  no  one  else  can  do,  and 
are  without  ambition  for  opportunity,  are  you  not  a 
poor  grovelling  creature?  Webster,  knowing  that  se 
cession  could  not  be  peaceable,  and  seeing  it  become 
more  and  more  probable,  racked  with  fears  for  the 
union,  and  aghast  at  the  menace  of  fraternal  bloodshed, 
like  Calhoun,  he  cheated  himself  with  a  futile  remedy. 
We  have  told  you  of  Calhoun's  proposal  to  disarm  the 
combatants.  In  his  amiability  Webster  believed  with 
his  whole  soul  that  he  could  as  president  make  his 
countrymen  love  one  another  as  he  himself  loved  them, 
and  that  he  could  pour  upon  the  waters  now  beginning 
to  rage  oil  enough  to  safe  the  ship  of  union  through  the 
tempest  soon  to  be  at  its  height.  It  was  an  aspiration 
high  and  holy,  deserving  of  eternal  honor  from  all 
America.  You  cannot  read  this  great  speech  of  March  7 
aright  if  you  do  not  discern  that  Webster  was  seriously 
alarmed.  When  you  see  that  a  dear  one's  malady  is 
fatal,  you  will  not  confess  it  to  others,  —  not  even  to 
yourself.  His  excited  exclamations,  "  No,  sir  !  no,  sir ! 
There  will  be  no  secession !  Gentlemen  are  not  serious 
when  they  talk  of  secession,"  cannot  deceive  a  reader 
whose  wont  it  has  been  to  look  into  his  own  heart. 
Webster  did  not  see  the  future  with  the  superhuman 
prevision  of  Calhoun;  but  he  had  observed  the  course 
of  things  in  that  stormy  session.  Is  it  to  be  believed 
that  he  had  overlooked  the  tremendous  significance  of 
Toombs's  speech  of  December  13,  and  of  the  wild  plau 
dits  it  brought  from  the  southern  members?  And  try 
to  conceive  what  must  have  been  the  effect  upon  him  of 
that  most  solemn  and  the  saddest  great  speech  in  all 
oratory  of  Calhoun  just  three  days  before.  Read  the 
/th  of  March  speech  by  its  circumstances  and  it  is  re- 


Webster  159 

vealed  to  you,  as  by  a  flashlight,  that  Webster  had 
peeped  behind  the  curtain  which  he  had  prayed  should 
never  rise  in  his  lifetime.  Horror-struck  as  he  was,  he 
would  not  despair  of  his  country,  — he  would  not  believe 
that  the  brothers'  union  was  about  to  turn  into  a  broth 
ers'  war.  Oh,  let  nobody  dishonor  his  better  self  by 
seeing  in  this  glorious  speech,  which  our  best  and  most 
lovable  have  placed  in  their  hearts  beside  Washington's 
farewell  address,  the  bid  of  a  turncoat.  Rather  let  us 
learn  to  understand  its  supreme  statesmanly  reach ;  its 
impartiality  towards  and  just  rebuke  of  the  orator's  own 
section  and  its  merited  castigation  of  the  other  coura 
geously  given,  while  affection  for  both  is  kept  upper 
most;  its  grand  dignity,  moral  height,  and  pre-eminent 
patriotism.  Let  us  also  learn  properly  to  estimate  the 
disfavor  with  which  he  regarded  ever  afterwards  during 
the  rest  of  his  life  the  active  anti-slavery  men  of  the 
north,  whom  he  could  not  understand  to  be  other  than 
bringers  of  the  unspeakable  calamity  he  would  avert. 
And  let  us  give  him  his  due  commiseration  for  missing 
the  nomination,  and  realizing  that  the  hopes  of  saving 
his  country  which  he  had  cherished  so  fondly  were  all, 
all  shattered.  When  we  do  our  full  duty  to  him  we  will, 
northerners  and  southerners  alike,  agree  that  Whittier's 
palinode  ought  to  have  gone  full  circle  before  it  paused. 
What  is  Webster's  highest  and  best  fame?  In  answer 
we  think  at  once  of  the  reply  to  Hayne,  its  loftiness 
throughout,  its  eagle  ascensions  here  and  there,  and 
most  of  all  the  organ  melodies  at  the  grand  close,  be 
side  which  the  famous  apostrophe  of  Longfellow  is 
harsh  overstrain.  The  next  moment  we  feel  he  is 
higher  in  his  profound  love  for  his  whole  country  than 
in  his  unequalled  eloquence.  He  and  Lincoln  were  the 
supereminent  Americans  who  could  never,  never  forget 
that  the  people  of  the  other  section  were  their  own  full- 


160  The  Brothers'  War 

blood  brothers  and  sisters.  They  are  the  supreme 
exponents  of  that  American  brotherhood,  more  deeply 
founded  and  more  lasting  than  either  one  of  the  nation 
alizations  which  we  have  explained,  out  of  which  a 
continental  is  first,  and  then  a  world-union  to  come. 
To  save  our  union  was  also  to  do  the  better  deed  of 
saving  that  brotherhood.  For  this  each  strove  in  his 
own  way.  I  believe  that  the  people  of  the  world-union 
will  pair  them  in  Walhalla,  and  set  them  above  all 
other  heroes,  crowning  Webster  as  the  monarch  of 
speech  which  prepared  millions  with  faith  and  fortitude 
for  the  crisis,  and  crowning  Lincoln  the  monarch  of 
counsels  and  acts  in  the  crisis.  It  will  be  understood 
that  neither  was  called  away  before  his  mission  was 
finished.  The  greatest  work  of  each  was  example  of 
the  love  with  which  we  should  all  love  one  another ; 
and  that  was  complete. 


CHAPTER  IX 

"UNCLE  TOM'S   CABIN" 

THE  misrepresentations  in  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin" 
of  the  character  of  the  negro  and  his  usual  treat 
ment  in  southern  slavery  have  been  taken  as  true 
by  the  best-informed  and  most  unprejudiced  everywhere 
outside  of  the  south.  The  quotations  which  I  make 
above  from  Prof.  Barrett  Wendell's  bahnbrechend  work 
on  American  literature1  show  a  rare  and  exemplary  free 
dom  from  sectional  bias.  But  he  is  a  most  convincing 
witness  to  the  statement  with  which  I  begin  this  chapter, 
as  I  shall  now  show  by  two  other  excerpts  from  the  same 
book,  making  it  appear  that  even  Professor  Wendell 
has  accepted  without  question  the  misrepresentations 
mentioned.  In  these  excerpts  I  italicize  the  important 
statements,  and  I  follow  each  with  a  contradictory  one 
of  my  own.  I  invite  close  attention  to  what  Professor 
Wendell  says  on  one  side  and  I  on  the  other,  for  they 
make  up  issues  of  fact  that  must  be  rightly  settled  be 
fore  the  historical  merit  of  the  work  which  is  the  subject 
of  this  chapter  can  be  accurately  judged. 
This  is  the  first  excerpt : 

"  Written  carelessly,  and  full  of  crudities,  '  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin,'  even  after  forty-eight  years,  remains  a  remarkable  piece 
of  fiction.  The  truth  is  that  almost  unawares  Mrs.  Stowe  had 
in  her  the  stuff  of  which  good  novelists  are  made.  Her  plot, 
to  be  sure,  is  conventional  and  rambling;  but  her  characters, 
even  though  little  studied  in  detail,  have  a  pervasive  vitality 
which  no  study  can  achieve ;  you  unhesitatingly  accept  them  as 

1  Ante,  28-30. 
II 


1 62  The  Brothers'  War 

real.  Her  descriptive  power,  meanwhile,  was  such  as  to  make 
equally  convincing  the  backgrounds  in  which  her  action  and  her 
characters  move.  What  is  more,  these  backgrounds,  most  of 
which  she  knew  from  personal  experience,  are  probably  so  faith 
ful  to  actual  nature  that  the  local  sentimejit  aroused  as  you  read 
them  may  generally  be  accepted  as  true"  * 

I  say  as  to  the  characters  in  the  novel  that  the  negroes 
are  monstrous  distortions,  being  drawn  in  the  main  with 
the  leading  peculiarities  of  whites  and  without  those  of 
negroes ;  and  that  as  to  her  most  representative  southern 
whites  Mrs.  Stowe  is  utterly  untrue  to  fact  by  making 
them  all  anti-slavery.  I  say  as  to  the  "  backgrounds," 
that  she  knew  as  little  of  them  as  she  did  of  the  negroes. 
I  expect  to  demonstrate  that  the  " personal  experience" 
claimed  for  her  by  Professor  Wendell  was  scanty  and 
inadequate  in  the  extreme. 

I  now  give  the  second  and  last  excerpt :  "  She  [Mrs. 
Stowe]  differed  from  most  abolitionists  in  having  ob 
served  on  the  spot  all  the  tragic  evils  of  slavery."* 

I  do  not  dispute  that  her  opportunity  of  learning 
southern  slavery,  small  as  it  was,  was  very  far  superior  to 
that  of  the  other  prominent  abolitionists  except  Seward, 
who  had  taught  school  in  the  black  belt  of  Georgia.3  I 
maintain  that  she  knew  but  little  of  southern  slavery,  and 
they  less ;  that  what  both  they  and  she  conscientiously 
and  most  confidently  believed  to  be  their  knowledge  of 
this  slavery,  the  slave,  and  of  the  slaveholder,  was  but  a 
prodigious  mass  of  delusion  and  prejudice. 

I  shall  show,  I  think,  that,  instead  of  observing,  she 
merely  fancied  and  imagined,  and  that,  to  say  the  least,  it 

1  A  Literary  History  of  America,  354.  2  Id. 

8  Consider  his  virtual  confession  when  Mrs.  Davis  good  humoredly 
taxes  him  with  saying  in  his  speeches  hard  things  of  slavery  which  he 
knew  from  actual  observation  to  be  fictions.  Memoir  of  Jefferson  Davis, 
voL  i.  581. 


"Undb  Tom's  Cabin"  163 

is  very  misleading  to  allege  that  this  fancying  and  imagin 
ing  of  hers  was  done  "  on  the  spot." 

By  the  words,  "all  the  tragic  evils  of  slavery,"  Profes 
sor  Wendell  evidently  means  that  the  evils  of  southern 
slavery  to  the  slave  were  both  very  many  and  very 
great.  I  shall  show,  I  believe,  that  the  condition  of  the 
average  negro  in  southern  slavery  was  far  better  than  it 
was  in  Africa  whence  he  came,  and  far  better  than  it  is 
now  since  he  has  been  freed.  There  are  occasionally  in 
cident  to  every  human  condition — even  to  the  relation  of 
parent  and  child — some  tragic  evils  of  its  own.  In  the 
native  home  of  the  negro  in  West  Africa  all  the  women 
and  nearly  all  the  men  are  slaves  of  brutally  cruel 
savages,  without  any  protection  of  law  whatever.  The 
social  organism  is  in  the  very  lowest  stage ;  and  there 
is  complete  inability  to  evolve  into  a  better  one  as  the 
stationariness  of  ages  proves.  In  the  new  south,  certain 
causes  which  I  have  described  at  length  in  the  last  two 
chapters  of  this  book  have,  ever  since  emancipation,  been 
steadily  and  with  acceleration  depressing  the  average 
negro ;  and  the  rise  of  the  few  who  have  managed  to 
acquire  some  property,  or  to  get  a  good  industrial  educa 
tion,  only  brings  out  more  conspicuously  the  misery  and 
wretchedness  of  the  mass.  It  is  correct  to  say  that 
there  was  a  vast  multitude  of  tragic  evils  to  the  negroes 
in  West  Africa ;  and  it  is  also  correct  to  say  that  there 
is  now  the  same  to  them  in  the  south;  but  it  is  not 
correct  to  say  that  the  tragic  evils  of  southern  slavery 
to  the  slave  were  frequent  or  general.  The  truth  as  to 
southern  slavery  ought  to  be  known  everywhere,  which 
is,  that  it  raised  the  negro  very  greatly  in  condition,  and, 
now  that  he  has  been  taken  out  of  it,  his  progress  has 
been  arrested,  and  he  is  relapsing. 

The  great  proposition  of  Mrs.  Stowe  and  of  the  root- 
and-branch  abolitionists  was  that  slavery  in  the  south 


164  The  Brothers5  War 

was  such  a  flagrant  and  atrocious  wrong  to  the  negro, 
that  every  human  being  was  commanded  by  conscience 
to  do  everything  possible  to  help  him  if  he  should  try 
to  escape  from  his  master.  Combating  this  proposition, 
without  any  concession  whatever,  I  think  it  well  that  we 
try  at  the  outset  to  ascertain  how  southern  slavery 
affected  the  negro,  whether  cruelly  or  beneficially.  To 
do  this,  his  condition  in  his  native  land,  his  condition 
while  a  slave  in  America,  and,  lastly,  his  condition  after 
his  emancipation,  must  be  compared.  I  beg  my  reader 
to  follow  me  attentively  as  I  now  review  and  contrast 
these  three  conditions.  First,  as  to  his  condition  in 
Africa.  Here  is  what  Toombs  said  of  him  to  a  Boston 
audience,  January  24,  1856: 

"  The  monuments  of  the  ancient  Egyptians  carry  him  back 
to  the  morning  of  time  —  older  than  the  pyramids  ;  they  furnish 
the  evidence  both  of  his  national  identity  and  his  social  degra 
dation  before  history  began.  We  first  behold  him  a  slave  in 
foreign  lands ;  we  then  find  the  great  body  of  his  race  slaves  in 
their  native  land  ;  and  after  thirty  centuries,  illuminated  by  both 
ancient  and  modern  civilization,  have  passed  over  him,  we  still 
find  him  a  slave  of  savage  masters,  as  incapable  as  himself  of 
even  attempting  a  single  step  in  civilization  —  we  find  him  there 
still,  without  government  or  laws  of  protection,  without  letters 
or  arts  of  industry,  without  religion,  or  even  the  aspirations 
which  would  raise  him  to  the  rank  of  an  idolater ;  and  in  his 
lowest  type,  his  almost  only  mark  of  humanity  is,  that  he  walks 
erect  in  the  image  of  the  Creator.  Annihilate  his  race  to-day, 
and  you  will  find  no  trace  of  his  existence  within  half  a  score 
of  years  ;  and  he  would  not  leave  behind  him  a  single  discovery, 
invention,  or  thought  worthy  of  remembrance  by  the  human 
family."  l 

If  my  reader  deems  Toombs's  picture  overdrawn  let 
him  consult  those  parts  of  the  recent  work  of  a  most 

i  Lecture  in  Tremont  Temple,  Stephens,  War  between  the  States, 
vol.  i.  637,  638  (Appendix  G). 


"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin*'  165 

diligent  and  conscientious  investigator  describing  the 
negroes  of  West  Africa,  and  note  what  is  there  told  of 
heathen  practices  still  surviving,  —  slavery  of  women  to 
their  polygamic  husbands,  pitiless  destruction  of  useless 
members  of  the  family,  robbery,  murder,  cannibalism, 
the  utter  want  of  chastity.1  We  quote  this  as  to  slavery, 
which  is  especially  important  here : 

"  Slavery,  having  existed  from  time  immemorial,  is  bound  up 
with  the  whole  social  and  economic  organization  of  West  African 
society.  There  are,  broadly  speaking,  three  kinds  of  slaves  : 
those  captured  in  war,  those  purchased  from  outside  the  tribe,  — 
usually  from  the  interior,  —  and  the  native-born  slaves.  All 
alike  are  mere  chattels,  and  by  law  are  absolutely  subject  to  the 
master's  will  without  redress.  But  in  practice  a  difference  is 
made,  for  obvious  reasons,  between  native-born  slaves  and  cap 
tives  taken  from  hostile  tribes.  The  latter  are  numerous,  and 
the  severest  forms  of  labor  fall  to  their  lot.  They  are  treated  with 
constant  neglect,  and  cruelly  punished  on  the  slightest  provocation. 
Their  lives  are  at  no  time  secure  ;  they  serve  as  victims  for  the 
sacrifice  ;  when  sick  they  are  driven  into  the  jungle ;  in  times  of 
scarcity  they  starve"  2 

The  master  has  the  power  of  life  and  death  over  all 
slaves.3 

The  same  author  adds:  "  The  pawning  of  persons  for 
debt  is  exceedingly  common.  If  the  debt  is  never  paid  in 

1  The  Negro  in  Africa  and  America,  by  Alexander  Tillinghast,  M.  A., 
N.  Y.,  1902. 

This  really  scientific  work,  very  complete  though  very  brief,  is  as  indis 
pensable  to  whomsoever  would  enlighten  the  country  upon  the  race  ques 
tion,  as  is  the  latest  and  best  text-book  to  the  lawyer  considering  a  case 
under  the  law  treated  therein. 

Mr.  Page's  "  The  Negro  :  The  Southerner's  Problem,"  N.  Y.,  1904,  has 
not  the  scientific  merit  of  the  last.  But  it  most  ably  advocates  the  side 
generally  taken  by  the  south. 

Both  books  are  free  from  blinding  passion  and  prejudice. 

2  Book  cited,  88.     The  italics  are  mine. 
»  Id.  88. 


1 66  The  Brothers'  War 

full,  the  pawn  and  his  descendants  become  slaves  in 
perpetuity."  : 

Surely  the  reader  who  has  attended  to  these  details 
which  I  have  given  from  Mr.  Tillinghast  will  admit  that 
the  southern  master  transferred  the  African  into  a  con 
dition  far  better  than  any  he  could  find  at  home.  In 
the  south  two  agencies  gave  him  beneficent  favor  to 
which  he  and  his  fathers  had  always  been  strangers. 
The  law  of  the  land  protected  his  life  and  shielded 
him  from  cruelty;  and  his  high  market  value  made 
it  the  interest  of  his  American  master  not  to  over 
work  or  under-  feed  and  clothe  him.  And  he  was  in 
troduced  into  the  first  stage  of  monogamic  life,  which 
he  developed  steadily  and  rapidly  until  he  was  freed. 
In  this  he  was  travelling  the  only  true  road  up  from 
barbarism.  If  he  could  have  but  stayed  in  it  until, 
after  some  generations  —  perhaps  centuries  —  chaste 
wives  and  mothers  had  been  evolved,  he  would  have 
stood  firmly  on  the  threshold  of  permanent  civilization 
and  improvement. 

Whatever  evil  of  southern  slavery  to  the  negro  my 
readers,  prompted  by  the  root-and-branch  abolitionists, 
may  suggest,  they  will  find  on  reflection  that  it  would 
have  been  far  greater  to  him  and  more  frequent  had 
he  remained  in  Africa.  Separation  of  members  of  the 
family  has  been  repeatedly  emphasized  as  a  most  horri 
ble  evil  of  slavery  in  the  south.  Such  separation  was 
incalculably  more  cruel  and  frequent  in  West  Africa 
than  it  ever  was  among  the  negro  slaves  in  America. 
And  how  have  the  root-and-branch  abolitionists  mended 
matters?  What  do  we  see  in  the  new  south,  now  that 
slavery,  the  great  rupturer  of  family  circles,  is  no  more, 
and  a  master  no  longer  can  part  parent  and  child,  or 
husband  and  wife  ?  Before  the  end  of  the  brothers'  war 

1  The  Negro  in  Africa  and  America,  88,  89.     Italics  mine,  again. 


" Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  167 

there  had  not  been  a  single  separation  of  a  family  among 
my  father's  slaves.  At  much  expense  and  inconvenience 
he  had  bought  the  husband  of  one  and  the  wife  of  an 
other  in  order  to  keep  each  one  of  these  two  pairs  united. 
In  1866,  Bob,  a  boy  of  sixteen,  who,  because  of  his  obedi 
ence  and  merry-making  gifts,  had  always  been  a  greatly 
indulged  pet,  signalized  his  new-found  freedom  by  steal 
ing  from  the  house  of  one  of  our  neighbors  some  articles 
of  considerable  value.  He  fled  from  justice,  and,  never 
seeing  his  parents  or  his  brothers  and  sisters  again,  died 
among  strangers.  In  1868,  Lewis  abandoned  his  wife 
Esther  and  their  young  child,  and  went  to  a  distant  town. 
Some  ten  years  afterwards,  Bill,  a  brother  of  Bob,  and 
several  years  younger,  convicted  of  an  unmentionable 
crime,  received  a  ten  years'  chain-gang  sentence.  Not 
long  before  this  the  body  of  one  of  his  two  wives  who 
was  at  the  time  out  of  his  favor  was  found  in  a  well. 
Reputable  whites  living  near  were  convinced  that  he 
had  murdered  her.  If  that  be  true,  it  should  count  as 
a  separation.  While  he  was  serving  out  his  sentence 
his  remaining  wife  married  again,  and  this  should  be  set 
down  also  as  a  separation.  Bob,  Lewis,  Esther,  and  Bill 
were  slaves  of  my  father.  He  did  not  own  twenty  in 
all.  This  example  shows  how,  as  to  the  same  negroes, 
southern  slavery  operated  to  prevent  separation  of 
families,  and  how  freedom  has  operated  to  encourage 
and  stimulate  it.  It  is  not  an  exceptional  example. 
My  maternal  grandfather  and  a  maternal  aunt  owned 
each  many  more  slaves  than  my  father  did.  Some  of 
my  father's  near  neighbors  had  slaves  in  considerable 
number.  In  all  of  these  slaves,  while  I  knew  them,  there 
never  was  a  separation  of  a  family  except  by  death  or 
the  voluntary  act  of  parties  to  a  marriage?  But  when 
they  were  freed  in  1865  separation  at  once  became  rife, 
and  it  has  always  been  active.  What  I  have  just  told  is 


1 68  The  Brothers'  War 

fairly  representative  of  the  new  south  throughout  the 
cotton  States. 

There  were  now  and  then  sales  made  of  slaves  which 
sundered  man  and  wife,  and  parent  and  child ;  but  such 
were  extremely  few,  and  their  proportion  was  steadily  de 
creasing  under  two  potent  influences.  Restraint  of  them 
by  the  law  had  commenced  and  was  growing.  But 
the  stronger  influence  was  custom  and  public  opinion. 
Before  approaching  sales  at  public  outcry  by  sheriffs  or 
representatives  of  a  deceased,  and  also  before  private 
sales,  the  slaves  to  be  sold  were  given  opportunity  to 
find  their  new  masters.  There  was  generally  a  neighbor 
who  owned  husband,  wife,  parents,  or  children,  or  wanted 
a  cook,  washerwoman,  seamstress,  boy  to  make  a  carpen 
ter,  striker,  or  blacksmith  of,  somebody  careful  with  stock, 
etc.,  and  the  upshot  would  be  that  the  man  selected 
by  the  slave  had  got  him.  The  seller  had  natural  feelings. 
His  wife  and  all  of  his  children  would  do  their  utmost  to 
get  such  new  masters  as  the  negroes  preferred.  I  shall 
always  cherish  in  memory  the  affectionate  regard  which 
the  mother  of  the  household  and  all  the  family  habitually 
showed  to  their  slaves.  As  I  write,  a  sweet  reminiscence 
comes  of  how  the  children  would  always  clamor  and 
mutiny  against  the  most  merited  punishment  of  their 
nurse  by  father  or  overseer.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the 
slave  steadily  won  larger  place  in  the  domestic  affections, 
and  that  his  treatment  by  each  generation  of  masters 
was  more  kind  and  humane.  And  as  a  part  of  this 
amelioration  the  percentage  of  forced  separation  of  slave 
families  was  all  the  while  becoming  less. 

Let  us  devote  a  moment  to  the  negro  trader,  as  he 
was  called,  and  his  slave-pens,  which  were  the  subjects 
of  much  and  heated  invective.  The  first  suggestion  in 
order  here  is  that  there  were  such  in  West  Africa,  far 
more  frequent  and  far  exceeding  in  cruelty  any  ever 


"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin "  169 

known  in  the  south.  To  take  the  African  away  from 
the  latter  and  turn  him  over  to  the  former  was  great 
kindness  to  him.  I  remind  my  readers,  in  the  next 
place,  that  the  factors  constantly  minimizing  separation 
of  slaves  from  other  members  of  the  family  —  law,  public 
opinion  becoming  more  sensitive, custom  becoming  more 
merciful,  and  the  sway  of  the  domestic  affections  stronger 
-  were  pari  passu  humanizing  every  incident  of  the 
commerce  in  slaves  as  property.  Lastly,  the  negro 
trader  and  the  pen,  by  reason  of  the  small  number  of  the 
slaves  to  whom  they  caused  real  suffering,  were  mercy 
and  prosperous  condition  itself  beside  the  convict  gangs 
and  pens  which  emancipation  has  put  in  their  place,  as 
will  come  out  more  clearly  in  a  short  while. 

His  use  of  the  lash  was  a  dire  accusation  of  the  mas 
ter.  The  reader  thinks  at  once  of  the  relevant  words  in 
a  famous  passage  so  often  quoted  from  one  of  President 
Lincoln's  messages:  "If  this  struggle  is  to  be  pro 
longed  till  .  .  .  every  drop  of  blood  drawn  by  the  lash 
shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn  with  the  sword."  This 
was  said  March  4,  1865,  a  month  and  five  days  only 
before  General  Lee's  surrender,  and  when  all  the  great 
battles  of  the  brothers'  war  had  been  fought,  —  a  war  by 
far  the  most  sanguinary  in  the  world's  history.  Blood 
did  sometimes  follow  the  blow  of  the  lash,  but  not  often. 
The  overseer  who  could  not  correct  without  breaking 
the  skin  always  lost  his  place.  When  the  statement  of 
Mr.  Lincoln  just  commented  on  is  compared  with  the 
actual  fact,  it  appears  to  be  one  of  the  most  extravagant 
hyperboles  ever  uttered. 

Before  I  have  my  readers  to  look  at  the  actual  facts  I 
want  to  say  a  preliminary  word.  The  parent  was  en 
joined  by  Solomon  not  to  spare  the  rod.  The  rod  was 
permitted  to  the  master  of  the  apprentice,  the  school 
teacher,  the  drill  officer,  and  others.  It  was  often  used 


170  The  Brothers'  War 

with  great  severity.  As  we  see  from  the  Decameron 
husbands  were  wont  to  correct  their  wives  by  beating 
them  with  sticks.  Whipping  on  the  bare  back  was  a 
common  execution  of  the  judgment  of  a  criminal  court. 
Our  insubordinate  convicts  are  strapped.  The  usual 
punishment  of  a  slave's  disobedience  was  to  whip  him. 
A  switch  was  not  generally  used,  because  by  reason  of 
his  thick  and  tough  skin  and  lower  nervous  develop 
ment —  to  use  a  common  expression  —  it  would  not 
hurt  him.  It  was  a  familiar  thing  to  me  in  my  child 
hood  to  hear  some  negro  tell  of  the  use  of  a  switch  on 
him  by  women  or  feeble  men,  how  the  blows  could 
scarcely  be  felt,  and  yet  with  what  outcry  and  clamor  he 
pretended  that  each  one  gave  him  great  pain.  The 
cowhide,  but  far  more  frequently  the  whip,  took  the  place 
of  the  switch.  The  former  was  more  and  more  dis 
credited,  because  it  could  seldom  be  laid  on  hard  enough 
without  cutting  the  skin.  The  whip  had  a  flat  lash  at 
the  end,  with  which,  as  the  strap  or  paddle  now  used  on 
our  convicts,  a  stinging  blow  could  be  hit  that  would  not 
draw  blood. 

An  ordinary  correction  of  a  negro  did  not  cause  him 
as  much  pain  as  your  child,  with  his  far  superior  sensi 
tiveness,  receives  when  you  give  him  the  rod.  Large 
and  heavy  as  the  overseer's  whip  looked,  the  negro,  with 
his  high  degree  of  insensibility  to  physical  pain  inherited 
from  his  African  ancestors,  who  for  a  hundred  generations 
or  more  had  bestowed  upon  one  another  all  kinds  of  cor 
poral  torture,  cared  far  less  for  it  than  the  abolitionist 
who  insisted  on  making  him  merely  a  black  white  man, 
could  ever  understand.  How  little  of  both  mental  and 
corporal  suffering  the  lash  causes  the  average  negro  is 
strikingly  shown  by  the  fact  that  ever  since  his  emanci 
pation,  when  he  is  detected  in  a  serious  offence,  he  is 
prone  to  propose  that  he  be  whipped  instead  of  being 


"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  171 

carried  to  court.  If  his  offer  is  accepted  he  strips  off  his 
clothes  with  alacrity,  exclaims  the  conventional  "  O, 
Lordy !  "  under  every  fall  of  the  whip ;  and  when  the 
contract  number  of  lashes  has  been  given  he  goes  away 
with  the  look  and  air  of  one  who  has  just  learned  that 
he  has  drawn  a  lottery  prize  of  thousands  ;  and  his  near 
est  and  dearest,  his  wife  and  children,  all  his  sweethearts, 
congratulate  him  cordially,  and  the  entire  negro  commu 
nity  rate  him  as  rarely  fortunate.  This  is  enough  here 
of  the  lash ;  but  a  word  or  two  more  will  be  appropriate 
when  we  give  the  chain-gang  attention. 

"  Run,  nigger,  run,  patroller  get  you." 

The  riotous  merriment  of  this  air  can  be  fully  appreci 
ated  only  by  one  who  has  heard  Cuffee  sing  it  at  the 
quarters  while  picking  his  banjo.  It  completely  con 
futes  the  charge  often  made  that  the  patrol  law  was  a 
cruel  one.  To  the  negro,  the  execution  of  that  law  was 
more  of  fun  and  frolic  than  punishment.  Let  this  air, 
and  all  the  others  to  which  the  slaves  used  to  dance,  be 
meditated  by  those,  if  there  are  such,  who  incline  to 
believe  that  Professor  DuBois  has  really  detected,  as  he 
seriously  contends,  in  the  negro  melodies  of  the  old 
south  deep  sorrow  over  slavery.  If  miserable  conditions 
give  character  to  musical  expression,  the  songs,  if  any, 
that  now  come  forth  spontaneously  from  the  mass  of 
southern  negroes  —  that  is,  from  those  of  the  lower  class, 
which  class  will  be  described  later  herein  —  ought  to  be 
sadder  than  the  tears  of  Simonides. 

My  reader  who  has  his  memory  stored  with  the  raw- 
head  and  bloody  bones  fiction  of  abolitionists  who  had 
never  set  foot  on  an  inch  of  slave  territory,  probably 
thinks  of  bloodhounds,  and  wonders  if  I  will  be  frank 
enough  to  mention  them.  He  has  been  made  to  believe 
that  runaway  slaves  often  had  the  flesh  torn  from  their 


172  The  Brothers*  War 

bones  by  these  dogs.  I  witnessed  several  chases  of 
runaways,  and  in  every  one,  when  the  negro  was  over 
taken  by  the  dogs,  he  was  in  a  tree  far  above  their 
reach.  Think  about  it,  and  bring  it  home  to  yourself. 
Put  yourself  in  the  runaway's  place,  you  would  surely 
understand  as  well  as  a  common  house  cat  does  how  to 
avoid  pursuing  dogs.  Negro  dogs,  as  they  were  called, 
were  bred  to  be  far  more  slow  than  fox  dogs.  The 
tricks  of  the  runaway  would  put  the  latter  at  fault  so 
often  that  they  could  hardly  ever  catch  him.  Further, 
the  packs  of  negro  dogs  were  usually  too  small  to  over 
power  a  stout  negro.  He  was  often  armed  with  a  scythe- 
blade  for  use  if  overtaken  where  he  could  not  find  a  tree. 
When  he  could  keep  ahead  no  longer  he  preferred  tak 
ing  refuge  to  fighting  with  the  dogs.  He  knew  he  could 
kill  or  disable  only  the  few  that  would  rush  in  recklessly, 
and  that  the  others  would  stay  too  far  from  him  to  be 
hurt  and  yet  keep  him  at  bay.  He  was  now  going  to 
be  caught,  and  he  would  think  it  better  not  to  pro 
voke  the  ire  of  the  owners  by  killing  or  injuring  their 
dogs. 

The  negro  hunted  the  'possum  and  'coon  by  night  and 
the  hare  —  the  rabbit,  as  everybody  called  it  —  on  Sun 
days,  half-holidays,  and  Christmas,  either  with  his  young 
master  or  without  him,  and  always  with  the  dogs; 
which  he  thus  learned  to  control.  A  negro  woman 
cooked  the  corn-bread  and  pot-liquor,  with  which  they 
were  fed  by  her  or  some  other  slave.  They  were  always 
waiting  near  when  the  slaves  ate  by  day  in  the  fields  or 
at  all  hours  of  night  in  their  cabins,  and  many  a  bit  was 
thrown  to  them.  Usually  there  was  the  greatest  friend 
ship  between  the  dogs  on  the  plantation,  those  intended 
for  chasing  runaways  included,  and  the  negroes.  It  was 
great  entertainment  for  a  negro,  at  the  command  of  his 
master,  to  give  the  young  negro  dogs  a  race,  as  it  was 


"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  173 

called.  These  races  were  frequent,  and  they  were  the 
entire  training  of  the  dogs  for  their  business.  A  hunting 
dog  when  lost  will  track  his  master.  And  many  a  run 
away  was  caught  by  dogs  which  he  was  in  the  habit  of 
feeding  and  hunting  with.  The  average  negro  of  those 
days,  prowling  so  much  at  night  as  he  did,  necessarily 
became  a  most  expert  dog-tamer.  How  often  I  have 
been  diverted  with  this  sight !  A  strange  negro,  coming 
on  some  errand,  intrepidly  opens  the  front  gate  and  en 
ters  the  yard  of  a  dwelling.  A  savage  dog  dashes  for 
ward.  Just  as  the  dog  crouches  near  for  his  spring,  the 
negro,  by  a  very  quick  movement,  takes  off  his  hat  and 
extends  it  to  the  dog.  The  latter  turns  his  eyes  away 
from  the  negro,  looks  at  the  old,  soiled  wool  hat,  smells 
it,  and  then  retires,  nonplussed. 

As  a  general  rule  a  negro  was  safe  from  the  bite  of 
dogs.  Running  away  was  not  frequent.  The  almost 
insuperable  difficulty  of  final  escape  from  the  dogs  pre 
vented  it.  And  it  was  in  practice  a  most  mild  means  of 
prevention.  I  suppose  that  I  knew  and  heard  of  the 
catching  of  some  twenty  odd  slaves  in  the  contiguous 
parts  of  Oglethorpe,  Wilkes,  Taliaferro,  and  Greene  coun 
ties,  which  constituted  the  locality  with  which  I  was 
familiar,  and  in  not  a  single  case  was  one  injured  by  the 
bloodhounds.  The  dogs  that  are  now  turned  loose  after 
our  convicts  are  of  far  more  savage  temper  than  were 
the  negro  dogs  of  the  old  south ;  and  consequently  the 
human  game,  when  come  up  with,  is  more  prompt  to  go 
up  a  tree  than  was  the  old  slave. 

There  was  much  less  lack  of  food  and  raiment  among 
the  slaves  than  among  the  class  known  as  the  white 
trash.  It  was  considered  a  business  blunder  not  to  keep 
them  supplied  always  with  more  food  than  they  wanted. 
They  were  in  better  physical  condition  than  the  average 
white  laborer  now  shows. 


174  The  Brothers'  War 

And  they  were  not  worked  hard.  Even  in  the  long 
est  days  of  the  year,  when  the  battle  with  the  grass  was 
fiercest,  at  night  the  quarters  were  resonant  with  mirth, 
song,  and  dancing  as  soon  as  the  mules  had  been 
watered,  stabled,  and  fed. 

The  foregoing  is  a  report,  from  my  observation  on  the 
spot,  of  "  all  the  tragic  evils  of  slavery  "  to  the  negro  in 
the  south.  I  have  been  at  pains  to  make  it  as  true  as 
can  be.  I  purpose  to  follow  it  now  with  a  like  report  of 
all  the  gladsome  blessings  to  him  of  his  freedom. 

His  true  and  fast  friends,  the  abolitionists,  equalized 
him  per  saltum  to  his  master  as  a  voter  and  office 
holder.  This  single  measure  was  sure  to  make  deadly 
enemies  of  white  and  black  in  the  south,  and  to  bring  a 
war  of  races  in  which  the  superior  one  was  bound  to 
conquer  and  become  absolute.  This  war  did  come,  and 
was  fought  out.  Profound  peace  has  reigned  for  some 
years,  and  the  negroes  now  contentedly  stay  away  from 
the  polls,  and  manifest  no  aspiration  whatever  for  office 
and  place. 

His  same  friends  gave  the  ex-slave  equality  with  his 
old  master  under  the  criminal  law.  He  had  this  in 
slavery  only  when  charged  with  a  capital  offence ;  and 
if  he  was  charged  with  a  graver  one  of  the  non-capital 
offences,  such  as  breaking  and  entering  a  dwelling, 
stealing  something  of  considerable  value,  he  was  brought 
before  a  statutory  court  of  justices  of  the  peace,  and  if 
upon  his  summary  trial  he  was  convicted,  his  punish 
ment  was  usually  a  short  term  in  jail,  the  sheriff  to  give 
him  so  many  lashes  each  day  until  he  had  received  the 
full  number  adjudged  in  his  sentence.  I  never  heard 
of  one  that  was  seriously  injured  by  this  kind  of  punish 
ment.  It  never  gave  him  any  permanent  mental 
anguish.  His  conscience  approved  whipping  as  the 
most  fit  punishment  for  every  offence.  The  crimes  of 


"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  175 

negroes  mentioned  above  in  this  paragraph  were  very 
infrequent.  Their  many  peccadillos  were  in  practice 
wholly  ignored  by  the  law,  and  given  over  to  private 
and  domestic  jurisdiction.  Cuffee  would  sometimes 
indulge  a  sudden  craving  for  fresh  meat  by  appropri 
ating  a  shoat  or  grown  lamb,  or  he  would  gratify  a 
watering  mouth  by  stealthy  invasion  of  melon  patches 
or  sweet  potato  patches  and  banks.  And  he  was  prone 
to  other  small  larcenies.  If  caught,  —  which  was  very 
far  from  always  happening,  —  he  was  whipped  ;  and  that 
was  the  last  of  it.  Now  he  must  replace  the  bounty  of 
his  master  which  sheltered,  clothed,  and  fed  him  com 
fortably  all  his  life  by  living  from  hand  to  mouth.  His 
forecast  utterly  undeveloped,  and  more  and  more  losing 
the  work  habit,  there  is  often  but  one  way  for  him  to 
avoid  starving  or  freezing,  and  that  is  to  get  the  neces 
saries  of  life  by  various  acts  which  are  crimes  in  the  law. 
It  is  but  a  scanty  supply  that  he  thus  manages  to  get. 
His  year  is  nearly  always,  from  beginning  to  end,  but  an 
alternation  of  short  feasts  upon  the  cheapest  fare,  and 
prolonged  fasts.  Yet  in  the  eye  of  the  stern  and  severe 
law  how  many  gross  offences  does  he  commit  by  doing 
only  the  things  which,  if  he  did  not  do,  he  could  not 
keep  soul  and  body  together.  And  so  he  is  brought 
before  every  court  of  any  criminal  jurisdiction,  and  when 
convicted,  as  he  generally  is,  for  he  is  nearly  always 
guilty,  —  not  in  conscience,  but  guilty  under  the  law 
which  his  emancipators  have  put  him  under,  —  often  he 
cannot  find  a  friend  to  pay  his  fine,  and  he  must  work 
it  out  in  the  chain-gang.  The  city  has  its  chain-gang, 
the  county  has  its  chain-gang,  and  the  State  works  or 
farms  out  its  convicts.  The  percentage  of  whites  among 
these  convicts  is  very  small.  Often  when  you  en 
counter  a  gang  at  work  you  cannot  find  a  single  white 
person  in  it.  These  negro  convicts  are  many,  many, 


176  The  Brothers'  War 

As  fast  as  one's  time  expires  his  place  is  filled  by 
another.  Disease,  decay  of  energy  from  irregular  food 
supply,  growing  habits  of  idleness,  and  other  things  in 
the  train,  bring  forth  tramps  more  plentifully,  and  from 
these  the  chain-gangs  are  more  and  more  largely  re 
cruited.  These  slaves  of  punishment  work  under  the 
eyes  of  guards  furnished  with  the  best  of  small-arms 
loaded  to  kill.  The  most  of  them  work  in  shackles.  If 
they  do  not  work  as  their  superintendents  think  they 
ought,  they  are  strapped.  I  have  seen  them  working  in 
the  rain,  as  I  never  saw  required  of  slaves.  At  night 
they  are  put  to  sleep  in  a  crowded  log-pen,  all  of  them 
chained  together,  the  chain  being  made  fast  to  each 
bunk.  The  guards  are  practised  marksmen,  known  to 
be  men  who  will  promptly  and  resolutely  "  do  their 
duty."  This  hell-like  life  constantly  keeps  each  convict 
watching  for  opportunity  to  make  a  dash  for  liberty. 
If  the  guards  have  anything  like  fair  shots  when  he 
starts,  one  more  unmarked  and  soon  forgotten  grave  is 
dug  and  filled  in  the  paupers'  burial  ground,  and  that  is 
the  earthly  end  of  this  poor  derelict  of  the  human  race. 
Suppose  he  gets  safely  away  from  the  guard.  In  a  few 
minutes  the  unleashed  dogs  are  yelping  on  his  track. 
In  the  old  days  even  the  negro  dogs  were  fed  and 
tended  by  slaves,  and  almost  every  dog  in  the  land 
seemed  to  love  negroes.  But  these  bloodhounds  in  the 
convict  camps  have  been  bred  into  a  deadly  hatred  of 
every  negro.  Escaping  Cuffee  is  usually  caught  Then 
more  of  the  paddle,  heavier  shackles,  chains  at  night 
stronger  and  more  taut,  and  the  bosses  harder  to  satisfy 
as  he  works  under  greater  hindrances  —  these  make  his 
lot  more  hell-like  than  it  was  before. 

It  is  a  melancholy  proof  of  the  insufficient  dietary  and 
bad  hygiene  of  the  common  negroes  that  these  convicts 
fatten  in  spite  of  their  cruel  hardships. 


"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  177 

The  long-term  convicts,  farmed  out  to  coal  and  other 
mine  owners  and  various  manufacturers,  and  private 
employers,  I  know  but  little  of  from  observation.  But 
what  I  hear  makes  me  believe  that  their  condition  is 
worse  than  that  of  those  just  described.  This  is  to  be 
expected,  for  two  reasons.  First,  they  are  worked  for 
profit  by  persons  whose  only  interest  is  to  get  the 
largest  possible  product  out  of  their  labor.  The  labor 
exacted  by  the  owner,  bear  in  mind,  would  not  be  severe 
enough  either  to  impair  the  market  value  or  check  vig 
orous  reproduction  of  his  slaves.  Second,  the  places 
where  these  convicts  are  worked  are  more  or  less  retired, 
and  thus  the  employer  escapes  scrutiny  nearly  all  the  year. 
Think  of  a  negro  who,  receiving  a  twenty  years'  sentence 
for  burglariously  stealing  a  ham  when  he  was  hungry,  is 
put  to  work  in  the  coal  mine !  Who  ever  hears  of  him 
afterwards?  He  is  soon  forgotten  by  his  wife,  who  takes 
another  husband,  and  by  his  children  either  skulking 
here  and  there  to  shun  the  officer,  or  toiling  in  a  chain- 
gang.  Here  is  indeed  a  bitter  slavery  —  bitterer  by  far 
than  any  West  Africa  ever  knew.  There  the  slave  does 
not  labor  underground  and  out  of  the  sun  so  dear  to 
him.  His  manumission  comes  mercifully  in  many  ways, 
long  before  the  expiration  of  twenty  years  —  the  sacrifice 
may  need  a  victim  ;  he  may  starve ;  he  may  fall  sick  and 
be  cast  out  in  the  bush.  But  the  mine  slave  —  the  mine 
boss  will  not  whip  him  hard  enough  to  give  him  even 
short  rest  from  his  work,  work,  work ;  he  shall  always 
have  enough  of  raiment,  food,  and  sleep  to  keep  him 
able  to  work,  work,  work ;  when  he  gets  very  sick  the 
mine  doctor  will  patch  him  up  and  send  him  back  to  his 
work,  work,  work ;  he  will  work,  work,  work  out  his 
twenty  years  in  this  hell  hole.  Miss  Landon  in  her  im 
mortal  invective  against  child  labor  exclaims : 

12 


178  The  Brothers'  War 

"  Good  God !  to  think  upon  a  child 

That  has  no  childish  days, 
No  careless  play,  no  frolics  wild, 
No  words  of  prayer  and  praise  !  " 

This  factory  child  that  never  knew  any  of  the  proper 
joys  of  a  child  is  without  either  sweet  memory  or  un 
availing  wish.  But  the  mine  slave,  the  most  of  whose 
former  life  was  passed  in  the  open  air,  how  he  pines  for 
the  splendor  of  his  loved  sun  by  day ;  how  in  his  bunk 
he  recalls  his  rounds  by  night  when  the  Seven  Stars,  the 
Ell  and  Yard  and  Job's  Coffin  were  his  clock  and  the 
North  Star  his  compass.  Each  part  of  the  revolving 
year  whispers  to  him  when  he  is  at  work  or  dreaming. 
Christmas  suggests  the  jug  with  the  corn-cob  stopper, 
the  'possum  cooked  brown,  the  yams  exuding  their 
sugary  juice,  the  banjo  picker  and  his  song,  the  fiddle 
playing  a  dancing  tune,  and  the  floor  shaking  under  the 
thumping  footfalls ;  the  cold  weather  following  suggests 
the  'possum  and  'coon  hunt;  the  early  spring  brings 
what  he  used  to  call  the  corn-planting  birds  and  their 
lively  calls ;  and  on  and  on  his  thoughts  go  over  mock 
ing-bird,  woodpecker,  early  peaches  and  apples,  full  or 
chards  spared  by  frost,  the  watermelon,  solitary  and 
incomparable  among  all  things  for  a  negro  to  eat,  his 
Sunday  fishings  and  rabbit  hunts,  his  church  and  society 
meetings,  this  and  that  dusky  love  who  fooled  him  into 
believing  that  he  was  dearer  to  her  than  husband  or  any 
other  man,  especially  some  yellow  girl,  his  nonesuch, 
exceeding  all  other  women  as  the  watermelon  excels  all 
other  produce  of  tree  or  vine,  —  on  and  on  his  thoughts 
go  over  what  he  can  never  have  again.  I  need  not  say 
a  word  for  the  white  victims  of  child  labor,  for  their 
race  is  rousing  for  their  rescue,  and  I  know  its  power 
to  achieve.  But  I  do  feel  that  it  is  my  duty  to  put 
that  friendless,  forgotten,  long-term  negro  convict  in 


"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  179 

the  minds  of  my  southern  readers.  If  he  must  be  a 
convict,  do  not  farm  him  out  to  mine  operators  or 
where  he  will  be  worked  behind  any  screen.  Put  all 
our  convicts,  both  felony  and  misdemeanor,  upon  the 
public  roads  until  they  need  only  a  little  working  now 
and  then,  say  I.  There  the  convicts  will  not  be  worked 
for  profit,  nor  in  secret. 

The  total  of  the  negro's  suffering  in  southern  slavery 
from  all  causes  falls  in  amount  far  below  that  alone 
which  has  come  upon  him  because  he  was  stupidly  sub 
jected  to  the  white  man's  criminal  law,  and  not  given 
reformatories  and  other  belongings  of  the  system  which 
we  are  perfecting  for  juvenile  offenders.  The  suffering 
in  slavery  was  occasional  only,  and  soon  over.  The 
present  suffering  of  the  negroes  under  the  criminal  law 
is  constant,  and  is  to  be  found  rife  in  every  locality. 
The  aggregate  of  the  felony  and  misdemeanor  convicts 
of  Georgia  now  at  hard  labor  is  about  4,500.  The  con 
victs  sentenced  by  city  and  town  police  courts  for  short 
terms  of  days  I  cannot  give  with  any  approximate 
accuracy.  I  think  it  probable  that  the  number  of  those 
convicted  each  year  in  the  municipal  courts  is  somewhat 
larger  than  that  of  those  convicted  in  the  State  courts. 
By  reason  of  a  late  wholesale  reduction  of  felonies  the 
number  of  long-term  convicts  does  not  increase,  —  it  is 
at  a  standstill,  —  but  the  number  of  the  misdemeanor 
and  municipal  convicts  steadily  increases.  More  than 
nine-tenths  of  those  in  each  one  of  the  three  classes  are 
negroes.  The  stench,  filth,  and  discomfort  of  their  nights 
and  the  hardship  of  their  days,  who  can  describe?  How 
it  moves  my  pity  to  see,  as  I  often  do,  the  convict  toil 
ing  incessantly  for  long  hours,  impeded  and  tortured 
by  his  iron  shackles,  the  paddle  at  hand,  and  a  double- 
barrel  or  Winchester  frowning  over  him,  each  to  be 
used  on  occasion  by  somebody  who  cares  nothing  for 


i8o  The  Brothers'  War 

and  has  no  interest  in  him.  Weary  as  the  worker  may 
be,  a  word  from  the  boss  gives  new  impetus  to  his  pick 
or  shovel.  Here  is  the  only  place  I  have  ever  known 
on  American  soil  where  one  can  find  "  poor,  oppressed, 
bleeding  Africa."  How  different  it  was  with  the  slave 
offender  !  It  mattered  not  what  was  the  charge  against 
him,  he  had  persons  related  to  him  both  in  interest  and 
affection  who  would  intercede  powerfully  at  his  call. 
Wherever  he  might  be,  —  in  the  sheriff's  hands,  or 
locked  up  by  the  overseer  in  the  gin-house,  —  a  messen 
ger-service  as  secret  and  more  sure  than  wireless  teleg 
raphy  even  if  not  as  quick,  was  at  his  command;  and 
some  child,  white  or  colored,  or  favorite  servant  would 
carry  his  entreaties  to  the  Big  House.  And  the  justices, 
or  ole  master  or  the  overseer,  would  be  influenced  by  a 
word  from  ole  miss,  or  the  tears  of  young  miss,  or  the 
importunity  of  young  master.  In  the  end  Cuffee's  pun 
ishment  would  be  made  tolerable ;  and  after  it  was  over 
he  would  the  next  night  at  the  cabin  brag  joyfully  of 
the  many  friends  he  had  and  what  great  things  they  had 
done  for  him  —  the  children  of  his  master  present  and 
showing  more  gladness  than  himself. 

Which  of  the  two  was  the  more  humane  and  Christian 
punitive  system  for  the  negro?  Which  of  the  two  was 
the  better  for  him  ?  That  of  slavery,  or  that  produced 
by  the  conditions  which  his  professed  friends  put  in 
place  of  slavery? 

I  assert  it  most  solemnly  that  I  never  saw  a  negro 
slave  worked  in  shackles  and  under  a  loaded  firearm, 
neither  by  his  master  nor  an  overseer,  nor  by  their 
command,  nor  by  an  officer  of  the  law ;  and,  further,  that 
I  never  had  information  or  report  that  such  had  been 
done. 

When  their  emancipators  led  the  negroes  out  of  their 
cabins  into  their  new  life  it  was  something  like  throw- 


"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  1 8 1 

ing  our  domestic  animals  into  the  forest  and  desert, 
where  they,  without  formed  habits  of  self-maintenance 
and  without  knowledge  of  the  new  environment,  must 
live,  if  they  can  live,  only  in  competition  with  their  wild 
brothers  and  sisters  knowing  the  environment  and  who  are 
self-maintaining  experts  therein.  That  comparison  serves 
somewhat.  But  this  comes  nearer:  Suppose  children 
between  the  ages  of  eight  and  twelve,  who  have  never 
been  taught  to  do  anything  for  themselves,  to  be  taken 
away  from  their  parents,  a;id  settled  among  a  people 
lately  made  bitterly  hostile  to  the  children,  as  the  whites 
were  made  to  the  negroes  by  the  effort  of  the  emanci 
pators  to  give  political  equality  —  nay,  supremacy  —  to 
the  latter.  Those  emancipated  children  must  subsist 
themselves.  How  little  they  could  earn  by  begging  or 
work.  They  would  have  to  steal  to  live.  Those  that 
did  not  steal,  and  for  whom  no  companion  would  steal, 
would  perish.  The  philanthropists  who  founded  this  in 
fantile  colony  would  have  outdone  but  by  a  very  little 
those  who  thrust  the  reluctant  negroes  into  freedom. 

I  ask  my  reader  to  add  here  mentally  the  full  descrip 
tion  which  in  my  last  two  chapters  I  have  given  of  the 
lower  class  of  the  negroes  in  the  south  —  this  description 
showing  them  to  be  ninety-five  per  cent  of  the  whole, 
far  below  their  average  condition  in  American  slavery, 
and  steadily  becoming  worse. 

I  believe  that  in  due  time  the  people  of  the  north  will 
make  these  admissions : 

1.  Any  and  every  evil  of  southern    slavery  to    the 
negro  was  accidental,  and  not  a  necessary  incident  of 
the  system,  just  as  the  occasional  evils  of  marriage  to  the 
parties  are  not  necessarily  incidental  to  that  institution. 

2.  As  this  slavery  had  improved  and  was  still  improv 
ing  the  negroes  so  prodigiously  in  every  particular,  and 
as  their  condition  during  the  forty  years  following  eman- 


1 82  The  Brothers'  War 

cipation  has  been  going  uninterruptedly  from  bad  to 
worse,  until  now  the  extinction  of  the  great  body  is 
frightfully  probable,  as  I  shall  show  in  my  last  two  chap 
ters,  the  sudden  and  sweeping  abolition  of  1865  was  an 
unutterable  misfortune  to  these  dependent  creatures. 
Emancipation  ought  to  have  been  gradual.  Especially 
ought  there  to  have  been  established  something  like  the 
Roman  patronate,  under  which  the  freedman  would  have 
been  sure  of  wise  advice,  beneficial  overlooking,  and 
efficient  protection  from  his  former  master. 

3.  The  grant  at  once  of  right  to  vote  and  hold  place  and 
office  to  the  southern  negroes  indiscriminately  exceeds 
all  blunders  of  democracy  in  madness  and  stupidity. 

4.  Southern  slavery,  so  far  from  being  wrong  morally, 
was  righteousness,  justice,  and  mercy  to  the  slave.     The 
federal  constitution  was  simply  obeying  the  commands 
of  good  conscience  in  recognizing  the  slave  as  the  prop 
erty  of  his  owner,  and  protecting  that  property.     There 
fore,  when  the  federal  government  emancipated  the  slaves 
it  ought  to  have  given  the  masters  just  compensation. 

So  much  for  what  American  slavery  was  to  the  negro, 
and  what  its  abolition  has  done  for  him  in  the  south. 
This  can  be  told  now.  But  for  years  the  powers  watch 
ing  over  our  union  kept  the  subject  in  the  dark.  It  did 
not  suit  their  purpose,  that  the  people  of  the  union-pre 
serving  section  should  see  and  understand.  They  had 
decreed  that  northern  resistance  to  slavery,  as  the  soli 
tary  root  of  disunion,  should  go  beyond  refusing  it 
extension  into  the  Territories.  They  chose  to  add 
another  provocation  of  the  secession  which  they  had 
planned  as  the  means  of  abolishing  slavery.  This  new 
provocation  was  that  the  north  be  induced  to  make  the 
fugitive  slave  law  a  dead  letter.  To  drive  the  south  into 
early  secession,  perhaps  it  would  not  be  enough  merely 


«  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  183 

to  deny  her  new  territory.  But  unite  the  north  against 
the  law  mentioned,  and  encourage  both  running  away 
and  the  underground  railroad  by  an  active  public  opinion, 
then  soon  all  along  the  southern  border  slavery  will  lose 
its  hold,  some  of  the  slaves  escaping  and  the  rest  going 
south.  This  zone  will,  after  a  while,  be  settled  by  the 
friends  and  employers  of  free  labor,  who  from  year  to 
year  will  push  the  southern  non-slave  district  further  in. 
The  menace  of  this  hostile  occupation  will  steadily 
become  greater  to  the  slaveholders,  and  finally  it  will 
convince  them  that  they  cannot  protect  slavery  in  the 
union. 

Many  northerners  who  declared  it  was  wrong  to  inter 
fere  with  slavery  in  the  States,  at  the  same  time  sympa 
thized  with  the  public  opposition  to  restoring  the  fugitive 
to  his  master.  It  is  clear  that  they  did  not  regard  this 
opposition  to  be  what  it  really  was ;  that  is,  actual  war 
upon  slavery  where  it  existed.  To  oppose  execution 
of  the  law  was  both  to  invite  and  help  runaways.  And 
if  such  invitation  and  help  was  persisted  in,  from  one 
end  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  to  the  other,  the  risk  of 
escape  of  slaves  and  their  consequent  depreciation  in 
market  value  would  both  steadily  increase.  The  refusal 
to  enforce  the  fugitive  slave  law  was  therefore  a  deadly 
attack  upon  slavery  in  the  States ;  and  this  was  so  plain 
that  the  union-loving  people  of  Georgia  declared  in 
the  famous  Georgia  Platform  of  1850  that  the  union 
could  not  be  preserved  if  that  law  was  not  faithfully 
executed. 

The  faithful  guardians  of  the  American  union  had 
"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin "  written  of  purpose  to  prevent 
the  execution  of  the  fugitive  slave  law.  They  hypno 
tized  the  root-and-branch  abolitionists  and  Mrs.  Stowe 
into  believing  that  to  abet  in  any  way  the  restoration 
of  a. flying  slave  was  an  unpardonable  crime ;  and  that 


1 84  The  Brothers'  War 

the  obligation  of  conscience  to  refrain  from  committing 
such  a  crime  imperatively  commanded  disregard  of  all 
counter  provisions  of  the  constitution  and  the  law  of  the 
land.  One  cannot  at  all  understand  the  mighty  abolition 
movement  if  he  stop  with  the  professed  motives  of  Phil 
lips,  Whittier,  Garrison,  Mrs.  Stowe,  and  the  rest.  They 
believed  in  their  hearts,  and  declared,  its  purpose  was 
to  wipe  out  the  great  national  disgrace  of  slavery,  to 
lift  the  slave  out  of  an  abyss  of  unspeakable  outrage 
and  injustice,  and  to  better  his  condition.  As  we  have 
shown  you,  they  were,  in  their  very  extreme  of  conscien 
tiousness,  as  wide  from  the  facts  and  right  as  wide  can 
be.  They  were  not  doing  their  own  wills,  as  they 
thought  they  were.  They  but  did  the  will  of  the  fates. 
The  latter  ruthlessly  —  so  it  seems  to  us  now  —  sacri 
ficed  both  the  prosperity  and  comfort  of  the  southern 
people  for  several  generations,  and  the  very  existence, 
it  may  be,  of  nearly  all  the  negroes  in  America,  besides 
also  making  a  laughing-stock  of  the  abolitionists  —  all 
to  the  end  to  kill  that  nationalization  which  threatened 
the  integrity  of  the  American  union. 

I  believe  that  I  can  now  take  my  reader  on  with  me 
in  what  I  have  to  say  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  book.  Let  him 
bear  in  mind  that  the  object  of  the  fates  was  to  have 
in  it  not  a  representation  true  to  fact,  but  such  an  untrue 
and  probable  one  as  would  unite  the  people  of  the  north 
in  moral  and  conscientious  resolve  against  any  and  every 
attempt  to  restore  a  fugitive  slave.  What  the  fates 
wanted  was  an  author  who  appeared  to  have  extensive 
and  accurate  acquaintance  with  slavery,  and  who,  while 
believing  it  most  conscientiously  to  be  the  extreme  of 
evil  to  the  black,  was  endowed  with  the  power  to  make 
the  north  see  with  her  eyes.  They  found  their  author 
in  Mrs.  Stowe,  whom  they  had  educated  and  trained 
from  infancy. 


"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  185 

In  view  of  the  mighty  influence  which  "  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin"  exercised  upon  public  opinion,  it  is  important  to 
examine  what  were  Mrs.  Stowe's  qualifications  to  speak 
as  an  authority  on  southern  slavery.  And  in  this  investi 
gation  the  same  qualifications  of  all  others  who  arraigned 
the  system  for  what  they  alleged  were  its  heinous  moral 
wrongs  to  the  slave  are  likewise  involved.  The  state 
ment  of  Professor  Wendell,  quoted  above,  that  she  was 
the  only  one  of  the  abolitionists  whe  had  observed  slavery 
"  on  the  spot,"  can  be  corroborated  by  overwhelming 
proofs.  If  it  be  made  to  appear,  as  I  think  will  be  the 
case,  that  she  was  from  first  to  last  under  a  delusion 
which  metamorphosed  the  negro  into  a  Caucasian,  and 
further  that  she  had  no  real  opportunities  of  learning 
the  facts  of  slavery,  then  the  case  of  the  root-and-branch 
abolitionists  must  fall  with  the  testimony  of  the  only  eye 
witness  whom  they  have  called. 

Whether  she  was  biased  or  not  we  will  let  her  own 
words  decide.  Here  they  are: 

"I  was  a  child  in  1820  [she  was  then  nine  years  old]  when 
the  Missouri  question  was  agitated ;  and  one  of  the  strongest 
and  deepest  impressions  on  my  mind  was  that  made  by  my 
father's  sermons  and  prayers,  and  the  anguish  of  his  soul  for  the 
poor  slave  at  that  time.  I  remember  his  preaching  drawing 
tears  down  the  hardest  faces  of  the  old  farmers  in  his  congrega 
tion.  I  well  remember  his  prayers  morning  and  evening  in  the 
family  for  '  poor,  oppressed,  bleeding  Africa,'  that  the  time  of 
her  deliverance  might  come  ;  prayers  offered  with  strong  crying 
and  tears,  and  which  indelibly  impressed  my  heart,  and  made 
me  what  I  am  from  my  very  soul,  the  enemy  of  all  slavery. 
Every  brother  that  I  have  has  been  in  his  sphere  a  leading  anti- 
slavery  man.  As  for  myself  and  husband,  we  have  for  the  last 
seventeen  years  lived  on  the  border  of  a  slave  State,  and  we 
have  never  shrunk  from  the  fugitives,  and  we  have  helped  them 
with  all  we  had  to  give.  I  have  received  the  children  of  liberated 


1 86  The  Brothers'  War 

slaves  into  a  family  school,  and  taught  them  with  my  own  chil 
dren,  and  it  has  been  the  influence  that  we  found  in  the  church 
and  by  the  altar  that  has  made  us  do  all  this."1 

No  comment  is  needed.  The  passage  shows  that  her 
strongly  excited  feelings  unavoidably  shaped  all  her  per 
ceptions  and  formed  all  her  judgments  as  to  everything 
in  slavery. 

Now  as  to  the  means  she  had  of  acquiring  the  facts. 
Although  she  had  seen  a  little  of  Kentucky,  a  border  slave 
State,  she  had  never  lived  in  it,  nor  anywhere  else  in  the 
south.  Especially  is  it  to  be  emphasized  that  she  had 
had  no  experience  of  the  cotton  region,  the  real  seat 
of  slavery,  and  the  only  place  where  it  could  be  fully 
studied  and  learned.  She  passed  some  eighteen  years 
in  lower  Ohio,  just  across  the  river  from  Kentucky,  where 
she  saw  much  of  escaping  slaves.  Of  course,  being 
aflame  with  zeal  as  she  was  for  her  subject,  she  had  ob 
served  closely  the  native  negroes  of  the  north.  Such  of 
these  as  she  met  were  widely  different  from  the  mass  in 
slavery;  for,  born  and  bred  in  the  north,  they  had  had 
the  beneficent  training  of  the  free-labor  system,  and  also 
opportunity  to  absorb  considerable  of  a  higher  culture. 
These  negroes  were  exceptional,  even  of  the  northern 
natives.  And  the  fugitives  were  also  exceptional ;  for 
they  far  excelled  the  companions  left  behind  them  in 
intelligence,  spirit,  and  every  essential  of  good  charac 
ter.  An  ordinary  Cuffee  had  liberty  the  least  of  all 
things  in  his  thoughts.  A  negro  like  Hector  or  Garri 
son,  the  former  escaping  from  Calhoun  and  the  other 
from  Toombs,  was  as  much  above  the  average  as  the 
shepherd  dog  is  above  common  sheep-worriers  and  egg- 
suckers.  Mrs.  Stowe,  as  her  book  shows,  had  no  con 
ception  whatever  of  the  ordinary  plantation  negro.  And 
while  she  had  seen  much  of  some  Kentuckians,  these 
1  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  and  Key,  Riverside  ed.,  vol.  i.  p.  xviii. 


«  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  187 

were  not  representative  southerners.  They  lived  upon 
the  border,  where  slave  labor  found  but  little  lucrative 
opportunity,  and  they  were  also  affected  more  or  less 
with  the  sentiments  of  their  nearby  northern  neighbors. 
Naturally  only  those  Kentuckians  of  the  border  who 
really  were  of  her  opinion  would  consort  with  this  de 
cided  anti-slavery  partisan;  the  others  would  stand 
aloof.  Mrs.  Stowe  never  knew  either  real  negroes  or 
real  slaveholders.  And  she  also  knew  nothing  whatever 
of  cotton  plantation  management.  Some  authors  show 
an  amazingly  full  and  accurate  knowledge  of  countries 
and  communities  which  they  never  saw.  Burke's  knowl 
edge  of  every  detail  touching  India  occurs  to  me. 
Lieber  had  visited  Greece  while  Niebuhr  had  not. 
When  the  former  had  minutely  described  to  the  other 
some  famous  landscape,  —  say  the  battlefield  of  Mara 
thon, —  Niebuhr  would  make  copious  inquiries  about  re 
mains  of  old  roads  and  belongings  which  the  other  had 
forgotten,  although  he  had  seen  them.  Tom  Moore 
had  never  been  in  Persia,  but  there  is  so  much  of  that 
country  drawn  to  the  life  in  Lalla  Rookh  that  somebody 
applied  to  him  the  saying  that  reading  D'Herbelot  was 
as  good  as  riding  on  the  back  of  a  camel.  Mrs.  Stowe 
could  not  collect,  sift,  and  read  facts,  and  see  through 
the  most  cunningly  devised  masks,  as  Henry  D.  Lloyd 
showed  his  marvellous  power  to  do  in  "  Wealth  against 
Commonwealth."  That  was  not  her  gift.  Her  gift  was 
to  tell  the  best  of  stories  —  to  vary  it  prodigally  and 
artistically  throughout  with  wonders,  with  things  to 
make  you  shudder  and  also  thrill  with  pleasure,  with 
things  to  make  you  cry  and  laugh.  Her  emotional  in 
vention  was  the  great  factor.  Here  is  her  own  account : 

"  The  first  part  of  the  book  ever  committed  to  writing  was 
the  death  of  Uncle  Tom.     This  scene  presented  itself  almost 


1 88  The  Brothers'  War 

as  a  tangible  vision  to  her  mind  while  sitting  at  the  communion 
table  in  the  little  church  in  Brunswick.  She  was  perfectly  over 
come  by  it,  and  could  scarcely  restrain  the  convulsion  of  tears 
and  sobbings  that  shook  her  frame.  She  hastened  home  and 
wrote  it,  and  her  husband  being  away  she  read  it  to  her  two 
sons  of  ten  and  twelve  years  of  age.  The  little  fellows  broke 
out  into  convulsions  of  weeping,  one  of  them  saying  through 
his  sobs,  t  Oh,  mamma,  slavery  is  the  most  cursed  thing  in  the 
world  ! ' " 

The  description  of  Uncle  Tom's  death  is  the  goal  and 
climax  of  the  novel.  Its  scene  is  laid  far  down  in  the 
south,  hundreds  of  miles  below  any  place  which  she  or 
the  children  had  ever  seen  or  studied.  It  would  have 
been  more  in  order  for  her  to  submit  the  draft  to  observ 
ant  residents  of  that  locality ;  but  the  fates  did  not  in 
tend  that  her  convictions  should  be  weakened  by  real 
information.  Evidently  she  considered  that  her  truth 
to  fact  was  fully  vindicated  by  the  effect  of  the  narrative 
upon  her  children,  who,  like  herself,  were  entirely  with 
out  knowledge  of  the  subject.  They  wept  and  ex 
claimed  over  it.  Why,  of  course,  like  all  children  they 
loved  horrible  tales,  which  their  weeping  and  lamenta 
tion  proved  that  they  thought  were  true.  Doubtless 
these  same  children  had  made  respectable  demonstra 
tions  over  Bluebeard  or  Little  Red  Ridinghood.  And 
now  over  Uncle  Tom's  death,  which  is  more  dreadful 
than  anything  in  Dante's  Inferno,  and  as  pure  figment, 
their  feelings  were  shaken  with  storm  and  tempest  as 
never  before. 

The  statement  just  quoted  proceeds  thus: 

"  From  that  time  the  story  can  less  be  said  to  have  been 
composed  by  her  than  imposed  upon  her.  Scenes,  incidents, 
conversations  rushed  upon  her  with  a  vividness  and  importunity 
that  would  not  be  denied.  The  book  insisted  upon  getting 
itself  into  being,  and  would  take  no  denial." 


"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin "  189 

I  often  fancy,  as  I  think  over  it,  that  the  last  quotation 
describes  suggestions  from  the  fates. 

But  we  must  let  Mrs.  Stowe  finish  what  we  have  had 
her  tell  in  part.  Informing  us  that,  after  writing  "  two 
or  three  first  chapters,"  she  made  an  arrangement  for 
weekly  serial  publication  in  the  National  Era,  she  says : 

"  She  was  then  in  the  midst  of  heavy  domestic  cares,  with  a 
young  infant,  with  a  party  of  pupils  in  her  family  to  whom  she 
was  imparting  daily  lessons  with  her  own  children,  and  with 
untrained  servants  requiring  constant  supervision,  but  the  story 
was  so  much  more  intense  a  reality  to  her  than  any  other 
earthly  thing  that  the  weekly  instalment  never  failed.  It  was 
there  in  her  mind  day  and  night  waiting  to  be  written,  and 
requiring  but  a  few  moments  to  bring  it  into  veritable  characters. 
The  weekly  number  was  always  read  to  the  family  circle  before 
it  was  sent  away,  and  all  the  household  kept  up  an  intense 
interest  in  the  progress  of  the  story"  1 

This  household  had  been  indoctrinated  by  the  zeal 
of  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher  into  believing  unreservedly  all 
the  inventions  of  ignorant  assailants  of  slavery  instead 
of  the  widely  different  facts. 

Before  I  begin  a  detailed  statement  of  the  material 
errors  and  perversions  of  fact  in  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  " 
I  want  to  emphasize  it  that  every  one  of  them  appeared 
to  northern  readers,  unfamiliar  with  the  negro  and  the 
south,  to  be  true,  and  most  efficiently  helped  to  form 
and  strengthen  sentiment  against  enforcement  of  the 
fugitive  slave  law. 

Many  things  that  she  writes  show  that  Mrs.  Stowe 
was  completely  ignorant  of  the  ways  of  the  cotton  plan 
tation.  I  have  space  to  mention  but  one.  Tom  was 
bred  in  Kentucky,  where  no  cotton  was  grown.  And 

1  These  quotations  from  The  Author's  Introduction,  Riverside  ed., 
Iviii,  lix.  The  last  sentence  italicized  by  me. 


190  The  Brothers'  War 

Cassy,  by  reason  of  her  indulgent  rearing,  had  had  as 
little  experience  as  Tom  in  cotton-picking.  Yet  these 
two  show  such  expertness  that  Tom  can  add  to  the 
sack  of  a  slower  picker,  and  Cassy  give  Tom  some  of 
her  cotton,  and  each  have  enough  to  satisfy  the  weigher 
at  night.  The  good  cotton-picker  is  surely  a  most 
skilled  laborer.  He  must  be  trained  from  childhood  to 
use  both  hands  so  well  that  he  becomes  almost  ambi 
dexterous.  The  training  that  the  typewriter  is  now 
urged  to  take  is  a  parallel. 

Mrs.  Stowe  shows  that  she  had  no  accurate  knowledge 
of  the  sentiments  of  the  whites  of  the  south  as  to  slavery. 
As  we  have  already  suggested,  there  may  have  been 
among  the  Kentuckians  of  the  border  some  outspoken 
opponents  of  slavery ;  but  it  is  very  probable  that  in  her 
womanly  ardor  for  her  great  cause  she  lavishly  magni 
fied  their  numbers.  In  her  novel  she  has  nearly  all  of 
her  white  southerners  —  I  may  add  all  of  the  attractive 
ones  —  to  declare  themselves  as  abolitionists  at  heart. 
Misrepresentation  of  fact  could  not  be  grosser  than 
this.  I  was  twenty-five  years  old  when  the  brothers' 
war  commenced.  I  had  mingled  intimately  with  the 
people,  high  and  low,  of  my  part  of  the  south.  During 
all  of  this  time  I  never  found  out  there  was  a  single  one 
of  my  acquaintances,  man,  woman,  boy,  or  girl,  who  did 
not  believe  slavery  right.  The  charge  implied  by  Mrs. 
Stowe  that  we  southerners  were  doing  violence  to  our 
consciences  in  holding  on  to  our  slaves  is  utterly  with 
out  evidence ;  nay,  it  is  unanimously  contradicted  by 
all  the  evidence.  As  we  and  our  parents  read  the  bible, 
it  told  us  to  hold  on  to  them,  but  to  treat  them  always 
with  considerate  kindness. 

Mrs.  Stowe  emphasizes  the  frequent  cruelty  of  the 
master  to  the  slave ;  and  she  emphasizes  more  strongly 
still  that  under  the  law  he  was  helpless.  The  slave  was 


"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  191 

not  helpless.     He   was   protected   by   law.     Note  this 
example,  given  by  Toombs : 

"The  most  authentic  statistics  of  England  show  that  the 
wages  of  agricultural  and  unskilled  labor  in  that  kingdom  not 
only  fail  to  furnish  the  laborer  with  the  comforts  of  our  slave, 
but  even  with  the  necessaries  of  life,  and  no  slaveholder  could 
escape  a  conviction  for  cruelty  to  his  slaves  who  gave  his  slave  no 
more  of  the  necessaries  of  life  for  his  labor  than  the  wages  paid 
to  their  agricultural  laborers  by  the  noblemen  and  gentlemen  of 
England  would  buy."  * 

The  witness  just  called  has  full  knowledge,  and  is  the 
extreme  of  frank  honesty  and  truthfulness. 

The  statute-book  demonstrates  that  the  law  was 
steadily  bettering  the  condition  of  the  slave.  I  have 
not  space  to  state  the  progression  which  can  be  found 
in  the  different  Georgia  enactments.  But  I  must  men 
tion  two  instances.  In  1850  the  procedure  of  trying  a 
white  person  charged  with  a  capital  offence  was  ex 
tended  to  the  slave.  The  code  which  came  of  force 
January  I,  1863,  and  which  had  been  adopted  some 
while  before,  prevented  any  confession  made  by  a  slave 
to  his  master — it  mattered  not  how  voluntary  or  free 
from  suspicion  it  might  be  —  from  ever  being  received 
in  evidence  against  him. 

I  commenced  law  practice  in  1857.  From  that  time 
until  I  went  to  the  front  I  observed  that  public  opinion 
was  becoming  more  decided  against  mistreatment  of  the 
blacks.  The  masters  of  as  heats,  —  as  ill-fed  negroes  were 
called  in  derision  of  their  lean  and  dingy  faces  by  the 
great  multitude  of  sleek  and  shining  ones,  —  those  who 
punished  with  unreasonable  severity,  those  who  exacted 
overwork,  —  they  were  few  and  far  between,  —  they  were 

1  Tremont  Temple  Lecture,  Stephens,  War  between  the  States,  vol.  i. 
641.  The  italics  are  mine. 


192  The  Brothers'  War 

all  more  and  more  detested ;  and  grand  juries  became 
more  and  more  prone  to  deal  properly  with  them.  I 
would  support  this  by  cases,  if  their  citation  would  not 
be  unpleasant  to  descendants  of  parties. 

Mrs.  Stowe  has  his  master  to  brand  George  Harris  in 
the  hand  with  the  initial  letter  of  the  former's  surname. 
She  has  Legree's  slaves  to  pick  cotton  on  Sunday.  I 
never  heard  of  any  cases  of  branding  human  beings 
except  as  a  punishment  for  crime  in  execution  of  a 
judgment  of  conviction,  and  very  few  of  them.  Tidying 
up  the  house,  cooking,  serving  meals,  caring  for  the 
animals  on  the  place,  and  such  other  things  as  are  done 
everywhere  on  Sunday,  were  of  course  required  of  the 
domestic  slaves.  Leaving  these  out,  no  slave  was  ever 
put  to  work  on  Sunday  except  to  "  fight  fire,"  or  at 
something  commanded  by  a  real  emergency.  Their 
employers  now  exact  from  thousands  of  white  persons 
of  both  sexes  all  over  the  country  a  great  amount  of 
such  hard  and  grinding  Sunday  work  as  was  never 
exacted  of  the  slaves  in  the  south.  Peep  into  stores, 
offices  of  large  corporations,  and  elsewhere,  while  others 
are  at  Sunday-school  or  church,  and  count  those  weary 
ones  you  find  finishing  up  the  work  of  the  last  week. 

But  all  of  the  mistakes  of  Mrs.  Stowe  noticed  in  the 
foregoing  are  mere  matters  of  bagatelle  as  compared 
with  the  character  and  nature  which  she  gives  the 
average  negro  of  the  south. 

She  represents  the  women  as  chaste  as  white  women, 
and  the  husbands  faithful  to  their  wives  even  when  sepa 
rated  from  them.  I  shall  now  tell  the  truth  as  I  know 
it  to  be  —  the  truth  that  all  observant  people  who  have 
had  experience  with  negroes  know. 

The  moment  almost  that  a  married  pair  of  slaves  were 
separated  for  any  cause,  each  one  secretly,  or  more  often 
openly,  took  another  partner.  Even  when  not  separated, 


"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  193 

infidelity  of  both  was  the  rule.  Mrs.  Stowe  has  the  girls 
and  their  parents  to  shrink  with  horror  from  the  desires 
of  the  master.  To  the  simple-hearted  Africans  the  mas 
ter  was  always  great,  and  there  was  among  them  not  a 
woman  to  be  found  who  would  not  dedicate  herself  or 
her  daughter  to  greatness,  finding  it  so  inclined,  —  hus 
band,  father,  brothers,  and  sisters  all  in  their  desire  for 
a  friend  at  court  heartily  approving.  The  white  whose 
concubine  gave  favors  behind  his  back  to  her  slave 
friends  was  the  stalest  joke  of  every  neighborhood. 

The  mass  of  the  negroes  are  more  unchaste  now  than 
they  were  in  slavery,  a  subject  of  which  I  shall  say 
something  further  in  another  chapter.  But  even  where 
the  master's  steady  requirement  from  one  generation  to 
another  of  a  stricter  observance  of  family  ties,  and  the 
natural  imitation  of  the  ways  of  the  dominant  race,  had 
lifted  the  slaves,  in  appearance  at  least,  far  above  their 
West  African  ancestors,  not  even  mothers  had  become 
chaste.  Boys,  girls,  men,  and  women,  both  married  and 
unmarried,  were  as  promiscuous  by  night  as  houseflies 
are  by  day.  The  horror  of  horrors  in  this  abyss  of 
moral  impurity  to  one  of  a  superior  race  was  their  utter 
unconsciousness  of  incest.1 

1  Professor  DuBois,  born  in  1868,  in  New  England,  whose  writings 
show  that  his  mind  has  been  soaked  to  saturation  in  abolition  misstate- 
ment  and  bitterness,  and  that  consequently  he  is  utterly  unfamiliar  with 
either  the  average  negro  slave  of  the  south  and  the  conditions  and  effects 
of  slavery  in  the  section,  attributes  the  present  unchastity  of  the  negroes 
to  the  frequent  separation  of  man  and  wife  by  the  master.  Here  is  what 
he  says : 

"  The  plague-spot  in  sexual  relations  is  easy  marriage  and  easy  sepa 
ration.  This  is  no  sudden  development,  nor  the  fruit  of  emancipation. 
It  is  the  plain  heritage  from  slavery.  In  those  days  Sam,  with  his  mas 
ter's  consent,  took  up  with  Mary.  No  ceremony  was  necessary,  and  in 
the  busy  life  of  the  great  plantations  of  the  Black  Belt  it  was  usually 
dispensed  with.  If  now  the  master  needed  Sam's  work  in  another  part 
of  the  same  plantation,  or  if  he  took  a  notion  to  sell  the  slave,  Sam's 
married  life  with  Mary  was  usually  unceremoniously  broken,  and  then  it 

13 


194  The  Brothers*  War 

Mrs.  Stowe  has  their  philoprogenitiveness  —  as  phre 
nologists  call  it  —  as  fully  developed  as  the  whites.  One 
bred  in  the  cotton  districts  well  remembers  that  it  re 
quired  all  the  vigilance  of  master  and  mistress,  overseer, 
and  the  deputies  selected  from  the  older  slave  women,  to 
secure  from  the  mothers  proper  attention  to  their  chil 
dren,  and  especially  to  keep  them  from  punishing  too 
cruelly.  But  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  this  parental 
misbehavior  was  as  general  as  the  unchastity  mentioned. 
When  the  mothers  aged  beyond  forty-five  or  fifty,  they 
would  begin  to  think  somewhat  less  of  beaux  and  some 
what  more  of  their  children. 

George  Harris  and  Eliza  are  next  of  the  slave  char 
acters  in  prominence  and  importance  to  Uncle  Tom. 
With  their  large  admixture  of  white  blood,  their  com 
paratively  good  education  and  superb  moral  training,  a 
southerner  would  think  that  you  were  merely  mocking 
him  if  you  named  these  as  fairly  representative  negroes. 
As  they  are  drawn,  they  are  really  whites  —  whites  of 
high  refinement  —  with  only  a  physical  negro  exterior, 
and  that  softened  down  to  the  minimum. 

But  Uncle  Tom  —  I  pray  my  northern  readers  to  take 
counsel  of  their  common  sense  and  consider  what  I 
shall  now  say  of  him.  Rightly  to  estimate  him,  I  must 

was  clearly  to  the  master's  interest  to  have  both  of  them  take  new  mates. 
This  widespread  custom  of  two  centuries  has  not  been  eradicated  in  thirty 
years."  The  Souls  of  Black  Folk,  142. 

This  statement  is  utterly  untrue,  as  Professor  DuBois  can  easily  find 
out  from  thousands  of  most  credible  witnesses.  I  never  knew  of  a  single 
such  separation.  Of  course,  I  will  not  say  that  there  were  none  at  all.  But 
I  do  say,  in  contradiction  of  his  assertion,  as  flat  as  contradiction  can  be, 
that  the  separations  which  he  describes  were  not  common.  Every  im 
partial  investigator  who  has  formed  his  opinion  from  the  actual  evidence 
knows  that  the  unchastity  of  the  negro  slave  of  America  was  an  inherit 
ance  from  Africa.  I  do  not  dispute  the  assertion  often  made  that  there 
were  and  are  still  chaste  negro  tribes  of  that  continent.  But  our  negroes 
did  not  come  from  them.  They  came  from  the  West  Africans,  accurately 
described  above  in  citations  from  Mr.  Tillinghast. 


"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  195 

begin  with  some  contrasts.  The  first  that  occurs  to  me 
is  Tyndarus,  the  slave  hero  of  the  Captivi  of  Plautus, 
pronounced  by  the  great  critic  Lessing  to  be  the  most 
beautiful  play  ever  brought  upon  the  stage.  Tyndarus 
and  Philocrates,  his  young  master,  taken  prisoners,  are 
sold  to  Hegio.  The  two  captives  personate  each  other, 
and  induce  Hegio  to  send  home  Philocrates,  who  was  a 
wealthy  noble,  and  keep  only  the  born  slave.  Hegio 
was  scheming  to  recover  his  own  son,  now  a  slave  in 
the  land  of  the  captives,  by  a  bargain  for  Philocrates, 
this  bargain  to  be  negotiated  by  the  counterfeit  Tyn 
darus.  Discovering  how  he  had  been  duped,  the 
anguished  father  tells  the  real  Tyndarus  that  he  shall 
die  a  cruel  death.  This  is  the  reply  of  the  slave : 

"  As  I  shall  not  die  because  of  evil  deeds,  that  is  a  small 
matter.  My  death  will  keep  it  ever  in  remembrance  that  I 
delivered  my  master  from  slavery  and  the  enemy,  restored  him 
to  his  country  and  father,  and  chose  that  I  myself  should  perish 
rather  than  he." 

That  is  exalted.  But  Tyndarus  has  not  the  complete 
goodness  of  Uncle  Tom.  As  soon  as  he  is  at  last  rescued 
from  the  horrible  mines,  to  find  Philocrates  true  and  him 
self  a  free  man,  he  threatens  woe  to  a  slave  who  had  in 
jured  him,  and  looks  approvingly  upon  the  execution  of 
his  threat. 

Compare  Uncle  Tom  with  the  good  men  of  the  bible, 
such  as  Moses,  Peter,  and  Paul,  to  mention  no  more. 
Not  one  of  these  was  able  always  to  keep  his  feelings 
and  tongue  in  that  complete  subjection  that  never  fails 
Uncle  Tom. 

Uncle  Tom,  in  whom  love  alone  prompts  all  thoughts 
and  deeds,  surpasses  every  saint  in  Dante's  Paradise  — 
he  surpasses  even  the  incomparably  sweet  Beatrice,  who 
now  and  then  chides  unpleasantly. 


196  The  Brothers'  War 

The  climax  of  my  comparison  is  reached  when  I  sug 
gest  that  Uncle  Tom  is  made  from  first  to  last  a  more 
perfect  Christ  than  the  Jesus  of  the  gospels.  The  latter, 
as  Matthew  Arnold  and  other  reverent  Christians  re 
mark,  was  sometimes  unamiable.  Remember  his  ex 
pulsion  of  the  money  changers  and  traders  from  the 
temple,  and  the  many  opprobrious  words  he  used  of 
and  to  the  Pharisees.  Growing  recognition  of  the  all- 
human  Jesus  is  benignly  replacing  a  religion  of  super 
stition,  intolerance,  and  dogma  with  one  of  universal  love 
and  brotherhood.  I  cannot  fully  express  my  apprecia 
tion  of  the  liberal  divines,  from  Channing  to  Savage, 
who  are  preparing  us  so  well  for  the  millennium.  But  I 
am  sure  a  new  study  of  Uncle  Tom  would  give  each 
one  of  them  firmer  grasp  of  christlikeness  and  far  more 
power  to  present  it.  Think  over  such  instances  in  that 
holiest  and  most  altruistic  of  lives  as  these :  He  has 
just  learned  that  he  has  been  sold;  that  he  is  to  be 
carried  down  the  river.  His  wife  suggests  that  as  he 
has  a  pass  from  his  master  permitting  him  to  go  and 
return  as  he  pleases,  he  take  advantage  of  it  and  run 
away  to  the  free  States.  As  firmly  as  Socrates,  un 
justly  condemned  to  death,  refused  to  escape  from 
prison  when  his  friends  had  provided  full  opportunity, 
Tom  declared  he  would  stay,  that  he  would  keep  faith 
with  his  master.  He  said  that,  according  to  Eliza's  re 
port  of  the  conversation  she  had  overheard,  his  master 
was  forced  to  sell  him,  or  sell  all  the  other  slaves,  and 
it  was  better  for  himself  to  suffer  in  their  place.  And 
as  he  goes  away  he  has  nothing  but  prayers  and  bless 
ings  for  the  man  who  sends  him  into  dread  exile  from 
his  wife  and  children.  He  falls  to  a  new  master,  whom, 
and  his  family,  he  watches  over  with  the  fidelity  and  love 
of  a  most  kind  father,  doing  every  duty,  but  above  all 
things  trying  to  save  that  master's  soul.  Then  his  cruel 


"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  197 

fortune  delivers  him  to  the  monster  Legree.  For  the 
first  time  in  his  life  he  is  treated  with  disrespect,  dis 
trust,  and  harshness.  Yet  he  forgets  his  own  misery, 
and  finds  pleasure  in  helping  and  comforting  his  fellow 
sufferers,  striving  his  utmost  to  bring  them  into  eternal 
life.  He  will  not  do  wrong  even  at  the  command  of  his 
cruel  master,  who  has  him  in  a  dungeon,  as  it  were,  into 
which  no  ray  of  justice  can  ever  shine.  And  here  he 
dies  from  the  cruel  lash — almost  under  it.  He  falters 
some,  it  is  true;  but  there  was  no  sweat  of  blood  as 
in  Gethsemane,  nor  exclamation  upon  the  cross,  "  My 
God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ! "  He  went 
more  triumphantly  through  his  more  fell  crucifixion. 

I  believe  that  the  character  of  Uncle  Tom  is  the  only 
part  of  the  book  which  future  generations  will  cherish; 
not  for  the  lesson  against  slavery  it  was  intended  to 
teach,  but  because  it  excels  in  ideal  and  realization  all 
imitation  of  Christ  in  actual  life  or  the  loftiest  religious 
fiction.  Consider  its  marvellous  effect  upon  Heine,  as 
told  by  a  quotation  from  the  latter  in  The  Author's  In 
troduction  to  the  book.1 

The  detailed  comparison  which  I  have  just  made  puts 
Uncle  Tom  upon  a  pinnacle,  where  he  is  above  all  the 
best  in  lofty,  self-abnegating,  and  lovingly  religious 
manhood ;  and  the  reader  notes  how  fruitlessly  I  have 
tried  to  find  another  like  him.  But  Mrs.  Stowe  was 
confident  that  she  had  not  exaggerated  or  overdrawn 
him,  and  further  that  such  were  common  among  the 
southern  slaves.  Here  is  what  she  deliberately  says  in 
her  Key: 

"The  character  of  Uncle  Tom  has  been  objected  to  as  im 
probable  ;  and  yet  the  writer  has  received  more  confirmations 
of  that  character,  and  from  a  greater  variety  of  sources,  than  of 
any  other  in  the  book. 

1  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  and  Key,  Riverside  ed.,  vol.  i.  p.  Ixxxix  sq. 


198  The  Brothers'  War 

Many  people  have  said  to  her,  '  I  knew  an  Uncle  Tom  in 
such  and  such  a  southern  State.'  All  the  histories  of  this  kind 
which  have  thus  been  related  to  her  would  of  themselves,  if 
collected,  make  a  small  volume."1 

Toombs  once  said  to  me,  "  It  would  have  been  a 
matchless  eulogy  of  slavery  if  it  had  produced  an  Uncle 
Tom."  But,  as  we  see  from  the  last  quotation,  she 
claims  far  more.  She  really  claims  that  it  was  fruitful  of 
Uncle  Toms  in  every  southern  State. 

Shall  we  attribute  this  firm  belief,  that  there  were 
among  the  southern  slaves  many  who  were  better  chris- 
tians  than  Christ  himself  is  represented  to  have  been,  to 
a  mere  hallucination?  That  word  is  not  strong  enough. 
To  explain  the  belief,  we  must  think  of  visions  suggested 
by  the  hypnotizing  powers,  or  something  like  the  spell 
on  Titania,  when  Bottom  with  his  ass's  head  inspired 
her  with  the  fondest  admiration  and  love. 

Although  the  foregoing  is  far  from  being  exhaustive, 
it  is  enough ;  it  shows  incontrovertibly  that  Mrs.  Stowe 
builded  throughout  upon  the  exceptional  and  imaginary. 
My  father,  a  Presbyterian  clergyman,  with  the  strictest 
notions  as  to  the  Sabbath,  as  he  generally  called  Sun 
day,  made  me  read,  when  a  boy,  a  book  called,  if  I 
recollect  aright,  "Edwards's  Sabbath  Manual."  Be  the 
title  whatever  it  may,  the  entire  book  was  but  a  collec 
tion  of  instances  of  secular  work  done  on  Sunday, 
and  always  followed  closely  by  disaster,  which  appeared 
to  be  divine  punishment  of  sabbath-breaking.  The 
author  was  confident  he  had  proved  his  case.  He  be 
lieved  with  his  whole  soul  that  if  one  should  do  on  Sun 
day  any  week-day  work  not  permitted  in  the  catechism, 
it  was  more  than  probable  that  God  would  at  once  deal 
severely  with  him  for  not  keeping  his  day  holy. 

J  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  and  Key,  Riverside  ed.,  vol.  ii.  273. 


"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  1 99 

This  is  a  somewhat  overstrained  example  of  Mrs. 
Stowe's  method.  I  will  therefore  give  one  which  is  as 
close  as  close  can  be.  Suppose  a  diligent  worker  to 
cull  from  newspaper  files,  law  reports,  and  what  he 
hears  in  talk,  the  cases  in  which  one  party  to  a  mar 
riage  has  cruelly  mistreated  the  other.  If  he  digested 
his  collection  with  a  view  to  effect,  it  would  prove  a  far 
more  formidable  attack  upon  the  most  civilizing  and  im 
proving  of  all  human  institutions  than  Mrs.  Stowe's  Key 
is  upon  slavery ;  and  if  he  had  her  rare  artistic  gift  he 
could  found  upon  it  a  wonderful  anti-marriage  romance. 
The  author  of  such  a  Key  and  romance  would  be  con 
futed  at  once  by  the  exclamation,  "If  these  horrors  are 
general,  people  would  flee  marriage  as  they  do  the 
plague."  Let  it  be  inquired,  "  If  '  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin* 
and  Mrs.  Stowe's  Key  truly  represent,  why  did  not  more 
of  the  blacks  escape  into  the  free  States?  and  why  did 
they  not  revolt  in  large  bodies  during  the  war  in  the 
many  communities  whence  all  the  able-bodied  whites 
had  gone  to  the  front  far  away  ?  "  and  there  can  be  but 
one  answer,  which  is,  there  was  no  general  or  common 
oppression  of  the  African  in  slavery  —  there  were  no 
horrors  to  him  in  the  condition  —  but  on  the  contrary 
he  was  contented  and  happy,  merry  as  the  day  is  long. 

How  was  it  that  a  book  so  full  of  untrue  statement 
and  gross  exaggeration  as  to  an  American  theme  found 
such  wide  acceptance  at  the  north  and  elsewhere  out  of 
the  south?  For  years  I  could  not  explain.  When  I 
read  it  at  Princeton,  I  talked  it  over  with  the  southern 
students.  We  pooh-poohed  the  negroes,  but  we  ad 
mired  the  principal  white  characters  except  Mrs.  St. 
Claire,  whom  we  all  regarded  as  a  libellous  caricature. 
The  representation  of  slavery  was  incorrect,  and  the  por 
trayal  of  the  negro  as  only  a  black  and  kinky-haired 
white  was  so  absurd  that  none  of  us  dreamed  that  either 


200  The  Brothers'  War 

would  be  taken  seriously  by  the  north.  It  was  some 
ten  years  after  the  brothers'  war  that  the  true  explana 
tion  commenced  to  dawn  upon  me,  and  it  has  at  last 
become  clear. 

It  is  an  important  fact  that  the  great  body  of  the 
people  of  the  north  knew  almost  next  to  nothing  of 
the  south,  and  especially  of  the  average  negro.  As  one 
calmly  looks  back  now  he  sees  that  in  the  agitation  over 
the  admission  of  California,  the  cleavage  between  the 
two  nationalizations  treated  in  foregoing  chapters  was 
becoming  decided,  and  that  the  people  belonging  to 
each  were  losing  their  tempers  and  getting  ready  to 
fight.  When  even  a  political  campaign  in  which  the 
only  question  is,  who  shall  be  ins  and  who  outs,  is  on, 
each  party  is  prone  to  believe  the  hardest  things  of  the 
other.  But  when  such  a  fell  resort  to  force  as  that  of 
1850  and  the  years  immediately  following  is  impending, 
all  history  shows  that  those  on  one  side  will  believe  any 
charge  reflecting  upon  the  good  character  of  those  on 
the  other  side  which  is  not  grossly  improbable.  Such 
quarrels  are  so  fierce  that  we  never  weigh  accusations 
against  our  adversaries  —  we  just  embrace  and  circulate. 
Thus  had  the  northern  public  become  ripe  for  an 
arraignment  of  the  morality  of  slavery,  which  —  as  was 
with  purblind  instinct  felt,  not  discerned  —  was  the  sole 
active  principle  of  the  southern  nationalization.  Even 
without  the  provocation  just  mentioned,  a  northern  man 
would  liken  the  African  in  everything  but  his  skin  and 
hair  to  a  white.  We  always  classify  a  new  under  some 
old  and  well-known  object.  When  the  Romans  first 
saw  the  elephant  they  thought  of  him  as  the  Lucanian 
ox.  The  automobile  which  propels  itself  around  our 
streets  is  made  as  much  like  the  corresponding  horse- 
drawn  vehicle  familiar  to  the  public  for  ages  as  can  be. 
The  northerner  knew  no  man  well  but  the  Caucasian, 


"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  201 

and  he  had  long  been  led  by  a  common  psychological 
process  to  give  his  characteristic  essentials  to  the  negro. 
And  now  when  anti-slavery  partisans  positively  main 
tained  that  the  latter  was  a  white  in  all  but  his  outside, 
adducing  seeming  proofs,  and  the  free-labor  nationaliza 
tion  was  with  its  leading  strings  pulling  all  the  northern 
people  into  line,  even  the  calmest  and  most  dispassion 
ate  among  them  were  influenced  to  believe  that  the 
negroes  were  so  much  like  our  Anglo-Saxon  selves  it 
was  an  unspeakable  crime  to  keep  them  in  slavery. 
And  all  tales  of  cruelty  and  horror  found  easy  credence. 

Thus  had  the  northern  public  been  made  ready  for 
"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin."  And  although  the  book  wholly 
ignored  and  obscured  the  really  live  and  burning  issue, 
and  it  was  packed  from  beginning  to  end  with  the  most 
gigantic  errors  of  fact,  it  took  the  section  by  storm. 

It  is  a  great  book.  When  something  has  been  as 
persistently  demanded  as  long  as  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin" 
has  been  by  the  northern  public  and  the  "  Conquered 
Banner"  by  the  southern  public;  when  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  plain  people  weep  over  them  and  lay  them 
away  to  weep  over  them  again,  you  may  know — it 
matters  not  what  the  unruffled  and  sarcastic  critic  may 
say  —  that  each  is  a  work  of  the  very  highest  and  the 
very  rarest  genius.  Tears  of  sympathy  for  tales  of  dis 
tress  and  misery,  whoever  can  set  their  fountain  flow 
ing  is  always  a  nature's  king  or  queen. 

I  have  read  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  four  times:  first  at 
Princeton  in  1852;  the  second  time  amid  the  gloom  of 
reconstruction,  more  accurately  to  ascertain  northern 
opinion  of  the  negro  and  forecast  therefrom,  if  I  could, 
what  was  in  store  for  the  south ;  the  third  time  as  I  was 
meditating  the  Old  and  New  South ;  and  just  the  other 
day  the  last  time.  The  more  familiar  I  become  with  it 
the  greater  seems  to  me  the  power  with  which  the  at- 


202  The  Brothers5  War 

tention  is  taken  and  held  captive.  The  very  titles  to  the 
first  twelve  chapters  are,  in  their  contents  and  sequence, 
gems  of  genius,  and  draw  resistlessly.  I  become  more 
and  more  impatient  with  Ruskin's  reprehending  the 
escape  of  Eliza,  when,  with  her  child  hugged  to  her 
bosom,  she  leaps  from  block  to  block  of  floating  ice  in 
the  Ohio  until  she  is  safe  on  the  other  side  —  a  marvel 
like  the  ghost's  appearance  in  the  first  scene  of  Hamlet, 
exciting  a  high  and  breathless  interest  at  the  outset, 
which  is  never  allowed  to  flag  afterwards.  Whenever  I 
begin  to  read  the  book,  I  fall  at  once  into  that  illusion 
which  Coleridge  has  so  well  explained.  I  accept  all  her 
blunders  and  mistakes  as  real  facts,  and  although  it  is 
hard  to  tolerate  her  negro  travesties  and  the  anti-slavery 
sentiments  of  her  southern  whites,  somehow  they  do  not 
then  offend  me,  and  there  is  chapter  after  chapter  in  which 
I  follow  the  action  with  breathless  interest.  "  Gulliver's 
Travels  "  and  "  Pilgrim's  Progress  "  are  examples  to  show 
how  little  of  reality  either  entertaining  or  moving  fiction 
needs.  From  a  mass  of  false  assumptions,  seasoned 
with  the  merest  sprinkling  of  fact ;  and  especially  from 
her  taking  for  granted  that  the  negro  is  really  on  a  par 
of  development  with  the  white,  she  has  constructed  the 
Iliad  of  our  time.  The  nursery  tale  out  of  which  Shak- 
speare  fashioned  the  drama  of  Lear  did  not  furnish  him 
with  smaller  resources.  What  a  wonderful  action  he 
puts  in  the  place  of  the  nursery  tale !  how  natural  and 
probable  it  all  appears  to  us  as  it  unfolds !  how  we  hate, 
or  pity,  or  admire,  or  love  as  we  cannot  keep  from  fol 
lowing  it !  Likewise  every  reader  in  the  north  accepted 
Mrs.  Stowe's  novel  as  the  very  height  of  verity,  and 
afterwards  saw  in  every  fugitive  slave  a  George  Harris, 
or  Eliza,  or  an  Uncle  Tom.  And  the  book  evoked  the 
same  effect  out  of  America.  The  most  curious  proof  of 
this  that  I  can  think  of  is  the  statue  of  The  Freed  Slave, 


"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  203 

which  I  saw  on  exhibition  at  the  Centennial.  It  has 
nearly  all  the  peculiar  physical  characteristics  of  the 
Caucasian;  and  it  represents  not  a  typical  man  of 
African  descent,  but  a  negro  albino,  that  is,  a  white 
negro,  not  a  black  one.  There  are  albino  negroes,  but 
there  are  also  albino  whites.  That  statue  shows  what 
was  European  conception  of  the  negroes  whose  chains 
were  broken  by  the  emancipation  proclamation.  Its 
reception  in  America  shows  also  that  the  same  con 
ception  prevailed  here.  Day  after  day  I  saw  crowds  of 
northern  people  contemplating  that  counterfeit  with 
deep  emotion,  many  of  the  women  unable  to  restrain 
their  tears. 

Surely  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  in  its  propagandic  po 
tency  is  unrivalled.  It  did  more  than  the  anti-slavery 
statesmen,  politicians,  preachers,  talkers,  and  orators 
combined.  To  it  more  than  to  all  other  agencies  is  due 
that  the  people  of  the  north  took  such  a  stubborn  stand 
in  opposition  that  the  south  at  last  saw  that  the  fugitive 
slave  law  had  been  practically  nullified.  Thus  the  fates 
worked  to  bring  about  secession.  For  secession  was 
to  bring  the  brothers'  war ;  and  this  war  was  to  do  what 
could  not  be  done  by  law  or  consent,  —  that  is,  to  get 
rid  of  slavery  as  the  informing  principle  of  southern 
nationalization. 

The  post-bellum  propagandic  effect  of  "  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin  "  has  been  very  malign.  With  the  companion  liter 
ature  and  theories,  it  formed  the  opinion  that  devised 
and  executed  the  reconstruction  of  the  southern  States. 
The  cardinal  principle  of  that  reconstruction  was  to 
treat  the  blacks  just  emancipated  as  political  equals  of 
the  whites. 

Those  who  did  this  are  to  be  forgiven.  They  had 
been  made  to  believe  that  the  negroes  of  the  south  were 
as  well  qualified  for  full  citizenship  as  the  whites,  and  it 


204  The  Brothers'  War 

was  but  meet  retributive  punishment  of  the  great  crime 
of  slavery  and  waging  war  to  hold  on  to  it,  that  the 
masters  be  put  under  their  former  slaves.  "  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin  "  had  made  them  believe  it. 

The  only  parallel  of  mass  of  pernicious  error  engen 
dered  by  a  book,  so  far  as  I  know,  is  "  Burke's  Reflec 
tions."  Constitutional  England  ought  to  have  followed 
Charles  Fox  as  one  man,  and  given  countenance  to  the 
rise  in  France  for  liberty.  But  Burke's  piece  of  magnifi 
cent  rhetoric  effectually  turned  the  nation  out  of  her 
course,  and  had  her  in  league  with  absolutists  to  put 
back  the  clock  of  European  democracy  a  hundred  years 
or  more.  Even  yet  intelligent  Englishmen  magnify  that 
most  unEnglish  achievement.  The  bad  effects  of  "  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin"  have  not  been  so  lasting  in  our  country. 
We  Americans  get  out  of  ruts  much  more  easily  than 
the  English.  The  north  is  now  rapidly  learning  the 
real  truth  as  to  the  utter  incapacity  of  the  mass  of  south 
ern  negroes  to  vote  intelligently,  and  complacently 
acquiesces  in  their  practical  disfranchisement  by  the 
only  class  which  can  give  good  government. 

We  must  utterly  reject  and  discard  everything  that 
Mrs.  Stowe  and  those  whom  I  distinguish  as  the  root- 
and-branch  abolitionists  have  taught,  in  their  unutter 
able  ideology,  as  to  the  nature  and  character  of  the 
negro,  and  in  its  place  we  must  learn  to  know  him  as 
he  really  is  —  to  tolerate  him,  nay,  to  love  him  as  such. 
This  is  the  only  way  in  which  we  can  prepare  ourselves 
for  giving  the  negroes  their  due  from  us. 

Further,  we  owe  it  to  our  proud  American  history,  now 
that  the  brothers'  war  is  forty  years  past,  to  ascertain 
the  real  cause  of  that  mighty  struggle,  maintained  most 
laudably  and  gloriously  by  each  side.  Those  whom  I 
am  here  criticising  made  many  believe  that  the  real 
stake  was  whether  the  slave  should  remain  the  property 


"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  205 

of  his  master  or  not.  Note  the  emphasized  adjuration 
in  the  "  Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic :  " 

"  As  he  [Christ]  died  to  make  men  holy,  let  us  die  to  make  men 
free." 

A  most  beautiful  sentiment,  fitly  expressed;  but  how 
it  humiliates  the  grand  issue,  which  was  whether  federal 
government  should  live  or  perish !  And  that  greatest 
of  American  odes,  Whittier's  "  Laus  Deo,"  how  wide  of 
the  true  mark  is  its  sublime  rejoicing !  Celebrating  the 
abolition  of  slavery  by  constitutional  amendment,  the 
occasion  demanded  that  he  extol  the  really  benign 
achievement.  That  achievement  was  that  all  cause  of 
diverse  nationalization  in  the  States  had  been  forever 
removed,  and  thus  it  was  assured  that  brotherhood  of 
the  nations  was  to  grow  without  check.  But  the  rapt 
bard  was  blinded,  as  his  utterances  show,  by  what  now 
almost  appears  to  have  been  a  fit  of  delusional  insanity. 

He  says : 

"  Ring  !  O  bells ! 
Every  stroke  exulting  tells 
Of  the  burial  hour  of  crime." 

What  does  he  mean  is  the  crime?  Why,  the  deliver 
ing  of  certain  Africans  and  their  descendants  from  lowest 
human  degradation  and  misery,  and  blessing  them  with 
opportunity  and  help  to  rise  far  upward.  Had  he  seen, 
as  we  do  now,  forty  years  later,  instead  of  pouring  out 
this  wild  and  mad  delight,  he  would  have  dropped  scald 
ing  tears  over  the  "  burial  hour "  of  all  that  promised 
anything  of  welfare  to  those  for  whom  he  had  labored 
so  long  and  faithfully.  And  in  the  last  stanza  his  com 
mand  that 

'*  With  a  sound  of  broken  chains  " 

the  nations  be  told 

"that  He  reigns, 
Who  alone  is  Lord  and  God  !  " 


206  The  Brothers'  War 

The  poet  misunderstood  the  "  broken  chains  "  as  greatly 
as  he  did  the  "  burial  hour."  Chains  were  broken,  but 
their  breaking  was  no  blessing  to  the  negro.  Golden 
chains  of  domestic  ties,  drawing  him  gently,  kindly, 
surely  up  to  higher  morality  and  complete  manhood  — 
these  were  broken;  and  far  other  were  forged  for  him, 
with  which  I  fear  he  has  been  made  fast  to  destruction. 
His  only  friends  able  to  help  alienated ;  what  a  clog ! 
Given  back  to  African  improgressiveness ;  what  a  fetter  ! 
How  he  is  held  to  the  body  of  death  by  unbreakable 
chains  of  want,  misery,  vice,  disease,  and  utter  helpless 
ness  !  and  how  his  shackles  gall  him  and  his  convict 
chains  clank  in  every  corner  of  the  land  which  was 
once  an  earthly  paradise  to  him ! 

Let  us  not  sully  with  Whittier  the  glory  of  the  federal 
arms  by  ascribing  to  them  as  their  chief  triumph  the 
gift  of  illusory  freedom  to  a  few  negroes.  Rather  let  us 
inform  ourselves  with  the  spirit  of  Webster,  and  give 
praise  and  thanks  without  end  for  the  actual  blessings 
and  the  richer  promise  of  the  restored  union  to  myriads 
of  that  race  whose  mission  it  is  to  spread  an  inexpres 
sibly  fair  socialism  over  all  the  earth. 

And  let  me  say  at  the  last,  the  people  of  the  north 
should  learn  that  all  the  tragic  evils  which  Professor 
Wendell  and  others  outside  of  the  south  have  in  mind 
belong  only  to  the  slave-ships,  and  by  a  strange  psycho 
logical  metastasis  —  no  stranger,  however,  than  that  by 
which  the  fourth  commandment,  in  popular  conception, 
has  been  abrogated  as  to  the  seventh  day,  and  applied 
to  the  first  day  of  the  week  —  they  have  firmly  attached 
themselves  to  the  reputation  of  southern  slavery.  For 
long  years  we  of  the  south,  our  mothers  and  our  mothers' 
mothers,  our  fathers  and  our  fathers'  fathers,  have  been 
charged  with  cruelties  and  outrages  purely  fancied. 
These  fabrications  are  the  stock  comparisons  with  which 


"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  207 

almost  every  invective  against  the  wrongs  of  any  lower 
class  is  sharpened.  The  writer  or  speaker  whenever  he 
is  taken  short  says  something  of  the  dreadful  condition 
of  the  southern  slave  under  the  sway  of  an  entirely  ab 
solute  master.  Variety  of  the  misdeeds  invoked  as  illus 
tration  is  limited  only  by  the  promptness  with  which  the 
utterer  can  think  of  what  he  has  read  in  abolition  litera 
ture  or  its  sequel.  It  is  all  mere  parrot  gabble.  To  hear 
so  much  of  it  as  we  do  is  "  a  little  wearing,"  as  Reginald 
Wilfer  said.  Surely  if  our  brothers  and  sisters  of  the 
north  but  think,  they  will  acknowledge  that  these  so- 
called  horrors  of  slavery  were  all  nothing  but  the  in 
ventions  of  the  angry  passions  provoked  by  the  powers 
in  the  unseen  after  they  had  decided  that  slavery  must 
be  sacrificed  in  the  interests  of  the  union.  And  these 
dear  brothers  and  sisters  will  no  longer  persist  in  assert 
ing  that  southern  slavery  was  but  robbery  and  oppres 
sion  of  and  cruelty  to  the  slave;  that  the  system  was 
evil  to  him  of  itself.  They  will  talk  no  more  of  the  pro- 
slavery  infamy,  of  the  unscrupulousness  and  perfidy  of 
the  slave  power,  and  all  such  false  twaddle,  that  can 
now  serve  no  purpose  whatever  except  to  offend  good 
men  and  women  and  their  children  without  cause. 


CHAPTER  X 

SLAVERY  AT  LAST  IMPELLED  INTO  A  DEFENSIVE 
AGGRESSIVE 

UNTIL  the  crisis  of  1850,  slavery  had  never 
changed  from  purely  defensive  tactics.  This 
year  made  it  seem  that  the  north  had  fully 
resolved  that  slavery  should  never  be  allowed  another 
inch  of  new  territory;  and  also  was  very  near,  and  was 
rapidly  coming  nearer  to,  the  point  of  practically  pre 
venting  the  enforcement  of  the  fugitive  slave  law.  We 
have  explained  how  slave  property  could  not  live  unless 
it  found  new  virgin  soil  in  the  Territories ;  and  we  have 
also  explained  what  a  deadly  blow  it  would  receive,  in 
the  refusal  to  restore  fugitives.  This  refusal  would  be 
really  indirect  abolition.  Read  the  masterly  sketch  by 
Calhoun,  in  his  speech  March  4,  1850,  of  the  conquering 
advance  of  the  anti-slavery  party,  until  now  —  to  use 
his  language  —  "  the  equilibrium  between  the  two  sec 
tions  .  .  .  has  been  destroyed ;  "  and  he  demonstrates 
that  the  actual  exercise  of  the  entire  national  political 
power  must  soon  be  in  the  hands  of  the  free-labor  sec 
tion.  The  south  instinctively  felt  that  the  time  for  her 
old  tactics  was  over,  and  that  she  must  do  more  than 
merely  fend  off  the  blows  of  abolition.  And,  as  we  will 
tell  in  the  next  chapter,  she  found  her  new  leader  in 
Toombs.  Nullification  as  advocated  by  Calhoun  was 
the  extreme  energy  of  the  pure  defensive  of  the  south. 
His  proposed  dual  executive  amendment  was  merely 
that  nullification  be  made  a  right  granted  to  the  federal 


Impelled  into  a  Defensive  Aggressive    209 

government  instead  of  remaining  one  reserved  to  the 
States.  Toombs  had  grown  up  in  the  school  of  William 
H.  Crawford.  George  R.  Gilmer,  a  follower  of  Craw 
ford,  tells  of  the  latter :  "  He  was  violently  opposed  to 
the  nullification  movement,  considering  it  but  an  ebulli 
tion  excited  by  Mr.  Calhoun's  overleaping  ambition."  l 

Toombs  scouted  nullification.  Under  his  lead  his 
State,  in  1850,  adopted  the  Georgia  Platform  quoted 
above.  This  platform  was  considerate  and  resolute 
preparation  for  the  southern  offensive. 

Next  the  south  assumes  initiative.  Extension  of  slave- 
territory  is  so  great  an  economical  sine  qua  non  that 
she  attacks  its  barriers.  Using  her  control  of  the  then 
dominant  democratic  party  she  got  the  Missouri  com 
promise  repealed.  Her  main  purpose  in  this  was  to 
wrench  from  the  anti-slavery  men  the  weapon  of  con 
gressional  restriction,  then  deemed  by  them  the  most 
powerful  of  all  in  their  armory.  She  also  contemplated 
extorting  a  concession  of  all  lands  in  the  Territories 
which  could  be  profitably  cultivated  by  slaves  from  the 
north,  alarmed  into  apprehending  that  otherwise  slavery 
might  be  carried  above  36.30'. 

This  repeal  did  more  than  anything  else  —  more  even 
than  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "-  —  to  arouse  the  north  into 
mortal  combat  with  slavery.  The  historian  cannot 
understand  why  the  south  procured  it,  if  he  ignores 
that  energy  of  southern  nationalization  which  we  have 
done  our  utmost  to  explain.  This  nationalization  had 
got  into  what  we  may  call  the  last  rapids,  and  was  bound 
to  go  over  the  precipice  into  the  gulf  of  secession. 

The  bootless  struggle  by  the  south  against  overwhelm 
ing  odds  of  northern  settlers  to  make  Kansas  a  slave 
State  was  the  sequel  to  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  com 
promise.  When  the  South  understood  that  Kansas  was 
1  Georgians,  128. 


210  The  Brothers'  War 

really  gone,  she  advanced  her  forlorn  hope  in  her  en 
deavor  to  secure  slavery  in  the  union.  The  essence  of 
the  compromise  measures  of  1850  was  that  the  demand 
of  congressional  non-interference  with  slavery  in  the 
States  and  Territories,  made  by  the  south,  was  declared 
adopted  as  future  policy.  As  the  forlorn  hope  just 
mentioned  she  now  made  the  demand  that  the  owner's 
property  in  his  slaves,  if  he  should  carry  them  into  a 
Territory,  should  be  protected  by  congress  until  its 
people  had  made  the  constitution  under  which  the  Terri 
tory  would  be  admitted  into  the  union.  Her  adherence 
to  this  demand  split  the  democratic  party;  and  the  elec 
tion  of  Lincoln  ensued.  This  election  meant  that  slavery 
—  the  property  supporting  more  than  nine-tenths  of  the 
southern  people,  and  which  was  virtually  their  entire 
economic  system  —  was  put  under  a  ban.  There  was 
nothing  for  it  but  depreciation  in  the  near  future ;  soon 
more  and  more  depreciation ;  until  after  prolonged  stag 
nation  and  paralysis  the  value  of  all  her  property  would 
collapse  as  did  that  of  the  continental  currency.  That 
was  the  way  it  looked  to  her.  We  believe  that  the  facts 
show  that  her  conviction  was  right.  She  felt  with  her 
whole  soul  that  the  time  had  come  to  invoke  State  sover 
eignty.  So  she  seceded,  with  intent  to  save  the  property 
of  her  people  and  maintain  their  domestic  peace.  Of 
course  she  purposed  an  equitable  apportionment  of  the 
public  domain  between  herself  and  the  north  under 
which  she  would  get  the  small  part  that  suited  slave 
agriculture. 

The  circumstances  constrained  the  south  thoughout 
every  part  and  parcel  of  her  offensive  as  powerfully  as 
exhaustion  of  his  supplies  constrains  the  commander  of 
a  garrison  to  a  sortie  upon  what  he  has  reason  to  believe 
is  the  weakest  point  of  the  circumvallation.  She  was 
hypnotized  by  the  powers.  They  made  her  believe  that 


Impelled  into  a  Defensive  Aggressive    211 

she  was  always  doing  the  right  thing  to  protect  slavery 
when  they  were  having  her  to  do  that  only  which  assured 
its  destruction.  She  was  all  the  while  as  conscientious  as 
the  mother  who,  afraid  of  drafts,  keeps  the  needed  fresh 
air  from  her  consumptive  child  and  thereby  kills  him. 

We  recognize  the  resistless  play  of  the  cosmic  forces 
upon  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars ;  upon  our  earth ;  in  the 
yearly  round  of  the  seasons;  in  the  ocean  tides;  in 
storms  and  heated  terms ;  in  vegetation ;  and  in  things 
innumerable  taken  note  of  by  the  senses.  But  this  is 
not  all  of  their  empire.  They  sway  individuals,  com 
munities,  peoples,  nations,  making  the  latter  even  be 
lieve  that  they  are  having  their  own  way  when  in  fact 
they  are  most  servilely  doing  the  will  of  the  powers. 


CHAPTER  XI 

TOOMBS 

CALHOUN  solidified  the  south  in  resolve  to 
leave  the  union  if  the  abolition  party  got  con 
trol  of  the  federal  government.  Just  before 
his  death  there  commenced  such  serious  contemplation 
of  an  aggressive  defence  of  slavery  that  we  may  call  it 
an  actual  aggressive.  Although  by  reason  of  his 
unquestioned  primacy  he  could  have  assumed  the  con 
duct  of  this  aggressive,  he  did  not.  Toombs  was  its 
real,  though  not  always  apparent,  leader,  from  its  actual 
commencement  until  it  resulted  in  secession.  Thus  he 
played  an  independent  part  of  his  own,  and  deserves  a 
chapter  to  himself.  While  Calhoun  was  the  forerunner, 
Toombs  was  both  apostle  and  the  Moses  of  secession. 
As  nearly  all  of  my  readers  have  never  thought  of  any 
one  else  than  Calhoun  in  this  capacity,  the  statement  of 
Toombs's  prominence  just  made  will  probably  startle 
them.  But  I  know  if  they  will  follow  me  through  the 
record  they  will  all  at  last  agree  with  me.  In  view  of 
Calhoun's  conspicuousness  in  the  southern  agitation 
from  1835  until  his  death  in  1850,  this  misapprehension 
of  my  readers  is  very  natural.  Contemporaries  follow 
ing  Sulla,  named  Pompey,  not  Julius  Caesar,  The  Great. 
Similarly  Toombs,  as  an  actor  in  the  intersectional 
arena,  is  as  yet  dwarfed  from  comparison  with  the 
really  great  but  not  greater  Calhoun. 

It  is  much  more  necessary  than  I  saw  such  a  method 
was  with  Calhoun  to  deal  first  with  what  we  may  call 
the  non-sectional  parts  of  Toombs's  career.  And  I 


Toombs  213 

wish  to  assure  my  readers  at  the  outset  that  these  parts 
are  exceptionally  important  and  valuable  not  only  to 
every  American,  but  to  all  those  anywhere  who  prize 
shining  examples  of  private  virtue  and  exalted  teachers 
of  good  and  honest  government. 

I  was  nearly  ten  years  old  when  Toombs's  congres 
sional  career  commenced  in  December,  1845.  Living 
only  eighteen  miles  from  him  I  heard  him  often  men 
tioned.  It  was  the  delight  of  many  people  to  report  his 
phrases  and  repartees.  By  reason  of  their  wisdom  or 
wit  and  fineness  of  expression,  the  whole  of  each  one 
lodged  in  the  dullest  memory.  I  never  knew  another 
whose  sayings  circulated  so  widely  and  far  without  al 
teration.  As  they  serve  to  introduce  you  to  his  rare 
originality,  I  will  tell  here  a  few  of  them  that  I  heard 
admired  and  laughed  at  in  my  boyhood. 

He  had  not  then  left  off  tobacco,  but  he  chewed  it  in 
cessantly,  and  a  spray  of  the  juice  fell  around  him  when 
he  was  speaking.  Once  while  he  was  haranguing  at  the 
hustings,  a  drunken  man  beneath  the  edge  of  the  plat 
form  on  which  he  was  standing,  rudely  told  him  in  a 
loud  voice  not  to  let  his  pot  boil  over.  Toombs,  looking 
down,  saw  that  his  interrupter  had  flaming  red  hair: 
"  Take  your  fire  from  under  it,  then,"  he  answered. 

In  another  stump  speech  he  was  earnestly  denying 
that  he  had  ever  used  certain  words  now  charged 
against  him.  A  stalwart,  rough  fellow  —  one  of  Choate's 
bulldogs  with  confused  ideas  —  rose,  and  asserted  he  had 
heard  him  say  them.  When  and  where  was  asked. 
The  man  gave  time  and  place,  and  added  tauntingly, 
"  What  do  you  say  to  that?  "  Toombs  rejoined,  "  Well, 
I  must  have  told  ad  —  d  lie." 

A  rival  candidate,  really  conspicuous  and  celebrated 
for  his  little  ability,  in  a  stump  debate  pledged  the 
people  that  if  they  would  send  him  to  congress  he 


214  The  Brothers*  War 

would  never  leave  his  post  during  a  session  to  attend 
the  courts,  as  he  unjustifiably  charged  Toombs  with 
habitually  doing.  The  latter  disposed  of  this  by  merely 
saying,  "  You  should  consider  which  will  hurt  the  dis 
trict  the  more,  his  constant  presence  in,  or  my  occasional 
absence  from,  the  house." 

In  another  discussion  this  same  opponent  charged 
him  with  having  voted  so  and  so.  Replying,  Toombs 
denied  it.  The  other  interrupted  him,  and  sustained  his 
charge  by  producing  the  Globe ;  and  he  expressively 
exclaimed,  "  What  do  you  think  of  that  vote  ?  "  Toombs 
answered  without  any  hesitation  —  nothing  ever  con 
fused  him—  "I  think  it  a  d  —  d  bad  vote.  There  are 
more  than  a  hundred  votes  of  mine  reported  in  that  big 
book.  He  has  evidently  studied  them  all,  and  this  is 
the  only  bad  one  he  can  find.  Send  him  to  congress  in 
my  place,  the  record  will  be  exactly  inverted ;  it  will  be 
as  hard  to  find  a  good  one  in  his  votes  as  it  is  now  to 
find  a  bad  one  in  mine." 

In  the  congressional  session  of  1849-50  Toombs  had 
made  his  Hamilcar  speech,  to  be  told  of  fully  after  a 
while.  In  this  he  avowed  his  preference  of  disunion  to 
exclusion  of  the  south  from  the  Territories  so  positively 
and  strongly  that  the  ultra  southern  rights  men  hailed 
him  as  their  champion.  But  soon  afterwards,  with  the 
great  majority  of  the  people  of  the  State,  he  took  his 
stand  upon  the  compromise  of  1850  and  the  Georgia 
Platform  quoted  above.  This  was  really  on  his  part  a 
recession  from  the  extreme  ground  he  had  taken  in  the 
speech.  In  1851,  a  coalition  of  the  whigs  and  demo 
crats  of  Georgia  nominated  Howell  Cobb,  a  democrat, 
for  governor,  and  Toombs,  then  a  whig,  canvassed  for 
him  with  great  zeal.  He  had  an  appointment  to  speak, 
in  Oglethorpe  county,  at  Lexington,  the  county  seat. 
There  were  quite  a  number  of  ardent  southern  rights 


Toombs  2 1 5 

men  in  the  county,  who  held  that  the  admission  of  Cal 
ifornia,  really  in  southern  latitude,  with  its  anti-slavery 
constitution,  called  for  far  more  decided  action  on  the 
part  of  the  south  than  was  counselled  in  the  Compro 
mise  and  Georgia  Platform.  Hating  Toombs,  whom  they 
regarded  as  a  renegade,  they  plotted  to  humiliate  him 
when  he  came  to  Lexington.  As  he  never  shrank  from 
discussion  they  easily  got  his  consent  to  divide  time 
with  —  as  the  phrase  goes  —  a  canvasser  for  McDonald, 
their  candidate  for  governor.  Toombs  was  to  consume  a 
stated  time  in  opening  the  stump  debate ;  then  the 
other  was  to  be  allowed  a  stated  time;  after  which 
Toombs  had  a  reply  of  twenty  minutes  —  these  were  the 
terms.  In  opening,  Toombs,  as  was  natural,  stressed 
the  compromise  measures  and  set  forth  the  advantages 
of  preserving  the  union;  and  he  fiercely  inveighed 
against  the  men  who  could  not  be  satisfied  with  the 
Georgia  Platform,  embraced  as  it  had  been  by  a  great 
majority  of  all  parties,  denouncing  them  as  disunionists. 
The  other  disputant  took  the  Hamilcar  speech  of 
Toombs,  made  just  the  year  before,  as  his  text  Delib 
erately,  accurately,  systematically  he  unfolded  the  doc 
trine  of  that  speech,  and  he  did  the  same  for  the  speech 
just  made,  and  contrasting  the  two,  he  put  them  into 
glaring  inconsistency.  Southern  rights  stock  rose  and 
union  stock  sunk  rapidly  as  the  comparison  went  on. 
In  his  peroration  the  speaker  commented  upon  Toombs's 
tergiversation  with  such  effective  severity  it  elicited  wild 
applause  from  the  men  of  his  side.  They  had  pushed 
themselves  to  the  front.  Toombs  rose  to  reply.  In 
their  riotous  rejoicing  over  the  great  hit  of  their  speaker, 
they  forgot  the  proprieties  of  the  occasion ;  forgot  that 
it  was  Toombs's  meeting,  as  was  said  in  common  par 
lance;  and  they  rapped  on  the  floor  with  canes,  and 
even  clubs  provided  for  the  nonce,  howled,  and  made 


2i 6  The  Brothers'  War 

all  kinds  of  noises  to  drown  his  voice.  Unabashed  he 
looked  upon  them,  smiling  that  grandest  and  blandest 
of  smiles.  As  the  foremost  of  these  roysterers  told  me 
long  afterwards,  his  self-possession  excited  their  curi 
osity.  They  wanted  to  hear  if  he  could  say  anything  to 
get  out  of  the  trap  in  which  they  had  so  cleverly  caught 
him;  and  they  became  still.  "It  seems  to  me,"  he 
commenced,  "  that  men  like  you  meditating  a  great 
revolution  ought  first  to  learn  good  manners."  At  this 
condign  rebuke  of  behavior  which,  according  to  stump 
usage,  was  as  uncivil  and  impolite  as  if  it  had  been 
shown  Toombs  in  his  own  house  by  guests  accepting 
his  hospitality,  spontaneous  cheers  from  the  union  men, 
who  were  in  very  large  majority,  appeared  to  raise  the 
roof.  In  his  highest  and  readiest  style  —  for  mob  oppo 
sition  always  lifted  him  at  once  into  that  —  he  reminded 
his  hearers  that  their  whole  duty  was  to  decide  whether 
they  would  approve  the  compromise  and  the  Georgia 
Platform  or  not;  and  that  to  discuss  whether  what  he 
had  spoken  last  year  before  these  measures  were  even 
thought  of,  was  right  or  wrong,  was  to  substitute  for  a 
transcendently  important  public  question  a  little  per 
sonal  one  of  no  concern  to  them  whatever.  "  If  there 
is  anything  in  my  Hamilcar  speech  that  cannot  be 
reconciled  with  the  measures  which  I  have  supported 
here  to-day  with  reasons  which  my  opponent  confesses 
by  his  silence  he  cannot  answer,  I  repudiate  it.  If  the 
gentleman  takes  up  my  abandoned  errors,  let  him 
defend  them." 

How  the  union  men  cheered  as  he  broke  out  of  the 
trap,  and  caught  the  setters  in  it ! 

I  heard  much  of  this  day,  still  famous  in  all  the  local 
ity,  when  six  years  afterwards  I  settled  in  Lexington, 
to  begin  law  practice.  Over  and  over  again  the  union 
men  told  how  their  spirits  fell,  fell,  fell  as  the  southern 


Toombs  217 

rights  speaker  kept  on,  until  it  looked  black  and  dark 
around  ;  and  then  how  the  sun  broke  out  in  full  splendor 
at  the  first  sentence  of  Toombs's  reply,  and  the  bright 
ness  mounted  steadily  to  the  end.  That  sentence  last 
quoted  is  a  proverb  in  that  region  yet.  If  in  a  dispute 
with  anybody  there  you  try  to  put  him  down  by  quoting 
his  former  contradictory  utterances,  he  tells  you  that 
if  you  take  up  his  abandoned  errors  you  must  defend 
them. 

The  interest  excited  in  me  by  what  is  told  in  the  fore 
going  was  the  beginning  of  my  study  of  Toombs,  which 
never  at  any  time  entirely  ceased,  and  which  will  doubt 
less  continue  as  long  as  I  live.  He  has  impressed  me 
far  more  than  any  other  man  whom  I  ever  knew.  Soon 
after  his  return,  in  1867,  from  his  exile  I  resolved  I  would 
try  to  write  his  Life  under  the  title,  "  Robert  Toombs, 
as  a  Lawyer,  Statesman,  and  Talker  ;  "  and  for  ten  or 
fifteen  years  I  had  been  systematically  collecting  the 
data.  These  had  accumulated  under  each  head  —  espe 
cially  reports  of  his  epigrams  and  winged  phrases  —  far 
more  considerably  than  was  my  expectation  at  first.  I 
added  to  them  very  largely  by  copious  notes  of  the 
record  of  his  congressional  life  which  I  read  attentively 
in  course,  commencing  immediately  after  his  death.  In 
a  few  years  I  had  finished  my  task.  As  yet  I  have  not 
found  the  times  favorable  for  publication,  and  the  MS. 
may  perplex  my  literary  executor.  Of  course  my  object 
in  the  too  egotistic  narrative  just  made  is  to  inform  you 
that  I  have  bestowed  very  great  labor  and  study  upon 
the  subject,  hoping  thus  to  draw  your  attention. 

Robert  Toombs  was  born  July  2,  1810,  on  his  father's 
plantation  in  Wilkes  county,  Georgia.  He  went  to 
school  at  Washington,  the  county  seat;  then  to  the 
State  university;  which' having  left,  he  finished  his  col 
legiate  course  at  Union.  Next  he  spent  a  year  at  the 


2i 8  The  Brothers*  War 

law  school  of  Virginia  university.  He  never  was  a  book 
worm.  His  habitual  quotations  during  the  last  fifteen 
years  of  his  life  —  when  I  was  much  with  him  —  betrayed 
a  smattering  of  the  Roman  authors  commonly  read  at 
school,  a  much  greater  knowledge  of  the  Latin  quoted  by 
Blackstone  and  that  of  the  current  law  maxims,  and  con 
siderable  familiarity  with  "  Paradise  Lost,"  "Macbeth," 
and  the  Falstaff  parts  of  "  King  Henry  IV."  and  "  Merry 
Wives,"  Don  Quixote,  Burns,  and  the  bible.  But  this 
man,  whose  diction  and  phrases  were  the  worship  of  the 
street  and  the  despair  of  the  cultured,  had  no  deep  ac 
quaintance  with  any  literature.  Erskine  got  the  staple  of 
his  English  from  a  long  and  fond  study  of  Shakspeare 
and  Milton ;  but  Toombs  must  have  drawn  his  only  from 
the  fountains  whence  Tom,  Dick,  Harry,  and  Mariah  get 
theirs,  and  then  purified  and  refined  it  by  a  secret  pro 
cess  that  nobody  else  knew  of,  —  not  even  himself,  as 
I  believe.  If  he  had  only  corrected  after  utterance  as 
assiduously  as  Erskine  did,  of  the  two  his  diction  would 
be  much  the  finer. 

The  year  before  he  came  of  age  he  was  admitted  to 
the  bar  by  legislative  act.  In  the  same  year  he  married 
his  true  mate  and  settled  at  Washington.  For  four  years 
the  famous  William  H.  Crawford  was  the  judge  of  the 
circuit.  Toombs  was  born  into  the  Crawford  faction, 
and  the  judge  who,  as  there  was  no  supreme  court  then, 
was  law  autocrat  of  his  circuit,  gave  him  favor  from  the 
first.  The  courts  were  full  of  lucrative  business.  The 
old  dockets  show  that  in  five  years  Toombs  was  getting 
his  full  share  in  his  own  county  and  the  adjoining  ones. 
The  diligent  attention  that  he  gave  every  detail  of  prep 
aration  of  his  cases,  had,  in  a  year  or  two  after  his  call, 
made  him  first  choice  of  every  eminent  lawyer  for  junior. 
One  of  these  was  Cone,  a  native  of  Connecticut,  who  had 
received  a  good  education  both  literary  and  professional, 


Toombs  219 

before  he  came  south.  Toombs,  who  had  known  the 
great  American  lawyers  of  his  time,  always  said  after  his 
death  in  1859  that  Cone  was  the  best  of  all.  Lumpkin 
used  to  tell  that  during  a  visit  to  England  he  haunted 
the  courts,  but  he  never  found  a  single  counsel  who 
spoke  to  a  law  point  as  luminously  and  convincingly  as 
Cone.  Another  one  of  these  was  Lumpkin.  He  is,  I 
believe,  the  most  eloquent  man  that  Georgia  ever  pro 
duced.  He  had  some  tincture  of  letters;  but  he  was 
without  Choate's  pre-eminent  self-culture  and  daily  drafts 
of  inspiration  from  the  immortal  fountains.  A.  H. 
Stephens  admired  Choate  greatly.  He  heard  the  lat- 
ter's  reply  to  Buchanan.  Often,  at  Liberty  Hall  —  as 
Stephens  called  his  residence  —  he  would  repeat  with 
gusto  the  passage  in  which  Choate  roasts  Buchanan  for 
his  inculcation  of  hate  to  England.  Stephens  contended 
that  if  all  that  education  and  art  had  done  for  each  — 
Choate  and  Lumpkin  —  could  have  been  removed,  a 
comparison  would,  as  he  believed,  show  Lumpkin  to  be 
the  stronger  advocate  by  nature. 

These  three — Cone,  Lumpkin,  and  Toombs  —  were 
often  on  the  same  side.  But  whether  Toombs  had  them 
as  associates  or  as  adversaries,  they  were  always  in  these 
early  years  of  his  at  the  bar,  in  his  eye.  With  the  un- 
remitted  attentiveness  of  what  we  may  call  his  subcon 
scious  observation,  and  a  receptivity  always  active  and 
greedy,  he  seems  to  have  soon  appropriated  all  of  Cone's 
law  and  all  of  Lumpkin's  advocacy  —  that  is,  he  had, 
as  he  did  with  the  speech  and  language  heard  by  him 
every  day,  transmuted  them  into  the  rare  and  precious 
staple  peculiar  to  his  own  sui  generis  self. 

In  his  first  forensic  arguments  his  rapid  utterance  was 
as  indistinct  as  if  he  had  mush  in  his  mouth,  old  men 
have  told  me.  But  after  a  year  or  two  of  practice  he 
developed  both  power  and  attractiveness.  In  due  time 


220  The  Brothers*  War 

when  Cone  or  Lumpkin  were  with  him,  he  would  be 
pushed  forward,  young  as  he  was,  into  some  important 
place  in  court  conduct.  I  myself  heard  Lumpkin  tell 
that  the  greatest  forensic  eloquence  he  had  ever  heard 
was  a  rebuke  by  Toombs  —  then  some  twenty-seven 
years  old  —  of  the  zeal  with  which  the  public  urged 
on  the  prosecution  of  one  of  their  clients  on  trial 
for  murder.  The  junior  —  the  evidence  closed — was 
making  the  first  speech  for  the  defence.  As  he  went 
on  in  a  strong  argument,  the  positiveness  with  which  he 
denied  all  merit  to  the  case  for  the  State,  angered  the 
spectators  outside  of  the  bar,  and  a  palpable  demon 
stration  of  dissent  came  from  some  of  them,  which  the 
presiding  judge  did  not  check  as  he  ought  to  have  done. 
Toombs  strode  at  once  to  the  edge  of  the  bar,  only  a  rail 
ing  some  four  feet  high  separating  him  from  these  angry 
men,  and  chastised  them  as  they  merited.  His  invective 
culminated  in  denouncing  them  as  bloodhounds  eager 
to  slake  their  accursed  thirst  in  innocent  blood.  These 
misguided  ones  were  brought  back  to  proper  behavior, 
and  with  them  admiration  of  the  fearless  and  eloquent 
advocate  displaced  their  hostility,  and  carried  upon  an 
invisible  wave  an  influence  in  favor  of  the  accused  over 
the  entire  community,  and  even  into  the  jury  box.  And 
the  narrator,  who  was  one  of  Toombs's  greatest  admirers, 
told  with  fond  recollection  how  the  popular  billows  were 
laid  by  the  speech  of  his  junior,  and  how  he  himself  took 
heart  and  found  the  way  to  an  acquittal  which  he  feared 
he  had  lost. 

This  affair  is  illustrative  of  Toombs  in  two  respects. 
In  the  first  place  it  shows  his  extempore  faculty  and 
presence  of  mind.  I  have  seen  him  so  often  in  sudden 
emergencies  do  exactly  the  thing  that  subsequent  reflec 
tion  pronounced  the  best,  that  I  believe  had  he  been  in 
Napoleon's  place  when  the  Red  Sea  tide  suddenly  spread 


Toombs  221 

around,  he  would  have  escaped  in  the  same  way,  or  in 
a  better  one.  I  do  not  believe  that  this  can  be  said  of 
any  one  else  of  the  past  or  present.  In  the  second 
place  it  is  one  of  the  many  proofs  extant  that  he  could 
always  vanquish  the  mob. 

He  divined  what  offered  cases  are  unmaintainable 
more  quickly,  and  declined  them  more  resolutely  than 
any  one  I  ever  knew.  So  free  was  he  from  illusion 
that  he  could  not  contend  against  plain  infeasibility.  It 
was  impossible  for  clients,  witnesses,  or  juniors  to  blind 
him  to  the  actual  chances.  For  ten  years  or  more,  com 
mencing  with  1867,  I  observed  him  in  many  nisi  -pruts 
trials,  and  I  .noted  how  unfrequently,  as  compared  with 
others,  he  had  either  got  wrong  as  to  his  own  side  or 
misanticipated  the  other.  But  now  and  then  it  would 
develop  that  the  merits  were  decidedly  against  him. 
He  would  at  once,  according  to  circumstances,  propose 
a  compromise,  frankly  surrender,  or,  if  it  appeared  very 
weak,  toss  the  case  away  as  if  it  was  something  unclean. 
When  he  had  thus  failed,  his  air  of  unconcern  and 
majesty  reminded  of  how  the  lion  is  said  to  stalk  back 
to  his  place  of  hiding  when  the  prey  has  eluded  his 
spring. 

Stephens  came  to  the  bar  some  four  years  after 
Toombs  did,  and  settled  in  an  adjoining  county.  I 
need  merely  allude  to  their  long  and  beautiful  friendship, 
full  details  of  which  are  to  be  found  in  the  biographies 
of  the  former.  I  merely  emphasize  the  importance  of 
Stephens's  help  to  Toombs's  development  in  his  early 
politics.  The  former  got  to  congress  two  years  before 
he  did.  Toombs  evidently  relied  greatly  upon  the  sagac 
ity  with  which  the  other  divined  how  a  new  question 
would  take  with  the  masses.  On  his  return  from  a 
brief  and  bloodless  service  in  the  Creek  war  as  captain 
of  a  company  of  volunteers,  Toombs  commenced  a  State 


222  The  Brothers'  War 

legislative  career,  which  Mr.  Stovall  has  creditably  told.1 
I  can  stop  only  to  say  it  was  honorable,  and  contributed 
greatly  to  his  political  education. 

When  Toombs  was  at  the  Virginia  law  school,  he 
heard  some  of  Randolph's  stump  speeches;  and  for  a 
few  years  afterwards  he  often  vouched  passages  from 
them  as  authority.  Stephens  would  tell  this ;  and  then 
with  affectionate  mischief  tell  further  that  his  friend, 
before  he  had  finished  in  the  Georgia  legislature,  had 
ceased  entirely  to  support  his  contentions  with  anything 
else  than  his  own  reasons. 

Before  he  got  to  Congress,  he  had  made  reputation  at 
the  hustings.  In  1840  he  crossed  the  Savannah,  and 
meeting  the  veteran  McDuffie  in  stump  debate  is  re 
ported  to  have  come  off  with  the  high  opinion  of  all 
hearers,  including  his  adversary. 

Let  us  now  take  an  inventory  of  him  as  he  is  about  to 
enter  congress.  He  is  the  best  lawyer  in  the  State,  ex 
cept  Cone,  and  fully  his  equal ;  while  as  a  speaker  he 
did  not  have  Lumpkin's  marvellous  suasion  of  common 
men,  yet  with  them  he  was  almost  the  next,  and  he  was 
far  greater  than  Lumpkin  in  quelling  the  mob,  convinc 
ing  the  honest  judge  that  his  law  was  right,  and  con 
vincing  also  the  better  men  of  the  jury  and  citizens 
present  that  the  principles  of  justice  involved  in  the 
issue  of  facts  were  to  be  applied  as  he  claimed ;  he  had 
acquired  enough  of  property  to  be  considered  rich  in 
that  day,  although  he  had  always  lived  liberally;  his 
legislative  and  political  career  had  convinced  the  people 
that  he  was  incomparably  the  best  and  ablest  man  of  the 
district  for  their  representative.  It  is  to  be  especially 
emphasized  that  he  had  practical  talent  of  the  highest 
order.  His  plantation  was  a  model  of  good  manage 
ment.  His  investments  were  always  prudent  and  lucra- 

1  The  Life  of  Robert  Toombs,  29-49  (New  York,  Cassell  Pub.  Co.). 


Toombs  223 

tive.  Practical  men  of  extraordinary  ability  were  bred 
by  the  conditions  about  him.  In  the  Raytown  district 
of  Taliaferro  county  —  about  ten  miles  distant  —  my 
maternal  grandfather,  Joshua  Morgan,  lived  on  his  plan 
tation  of  more  than  a  thousand  acres,  which  he  managed 
without  an  overseer.  His  father  had  been  killed  by  the 
tories.  His  education  had  been  so  scant  that  he  found 
reading  the  simplest  English  difficult,  and  to  sign  his 
name  was  the  only  writing  I  ever  knew  him  to  do.  But 
his  plantation  management  was  the  admiration  of  all  his 
neighbors.  His  land  was  sandy  and  thin,  but  he  made 
it  yield  more  than  ample  support  for  his  numerous  fam 
ily,  his  rapidly  increasing  force  of  negroes,  his  blooded 
horses,  his  unusually  large  number  of  hogs,  cows,  sheep, 
and  goats;  and  a  fair  quantity  of  cotton  besides.  The 
slaves  loved  sweet  potatoes  more  than  any  other  food, 
and  they  were  a  favorite  food  in  the  Big  House.  His 
supplies  never  failed,  there  being  some  unopened  "  banks 
or  hills  "  when  the  new  potatoes  came.  His  hogs  were 
his  special  attention.  His  fine  horses  required  so  much 
corn,  and  so  much  more  of  it  was  needed  for  bread, 
that  he  could  not  feed  it  lavishly  to  his  hogs.  So  he 
developed  a  succession  of  peach  orchards,  with  which 
he  commenced  their  fattening  in  the  summer.  These 
were  four  in  all ;  the  first  ripened  in  July  and  the  last 
the  fourth  week  in  October.  The  fruit  in  any  particular 
one  ripened  at  the  same  time,  and  he  cared  not  how 
many  different  varieties  there  were.  Whenever  he  tasted 
peaches  away  from  home  that  he  liked,  if  they  were  not 
from  grafted  trees,  he  would  carry  away  the  seed,  and 
there  was  a  particular  drawer  labelled  with  the  date,  into 
which  they  were  put.  Whenever  he  had  need  to  plant 
a  tree  whose  fruit  was  desired  at  that  particular  time  of 
the  year,  the  seed  was  planted  where  he  wanted  the 
tree.  Many  of  his  neighbors  planted  the  seeds  in  a  nur- 


224  The  Brothers'  War 

sery,  whence  after  a  year  or  two  they  transplanted  the 
young  trees ;  but  my  grandfather,  as  he  told  me,  saved 
a  year  by  his  method.  He  was  always  replanting  in 
place  of  injured  trees  and  those  he  had  found  to  be 
inferior.  The  "  fattening  "  hogs  —  that  is,  those  to  be 
next  killed  for  meat  —  were  turned  into  the  July  orchard 
just  as  soon  as  the  peaches  commenced  to  fall ;  and  they 
went  on  through  the  rest  of  the  series.  There  was  run 
ning  water  in  each  orchard.  After  peach-time,  these 
hogs  ran  upon  the  peas  which  were  now  ripe  in  the 
corn  fields,  the  corn  having  been  gathered.  And  for 
some  two  weeks  before  they  were  to  be  killed  they  were 
penned  and  given  all  the  corn  they  would  eat.  What 
pride  the  good  planter  of  that  time  took  in  keeping  in 
dependent  of  the  Tennessee  hog  drover,  who  was  the 
main  resource  of  his  rural  neighbors  who  did  not  save 
their  own  meat,  as  the  phrase  then  was  !  Observing  that 
his  hogs  were  not  safe  against  roving  negroes  when  away 
from  the  house  on  Sunday,  on  that  day  they  were  kept 
up.  One  of  my  earliest  recollections  is  that  of  Old 
Lige  driving  them  to  the  spring  branch  twice  every 
Sunday.  For  a  long  while  he  tried  in  various  ways  to 
protect  his  sheep  against  worrying  dogs.  At  last  he 
had  them  "  got  up  "  every  night  in  some  enclosure  he 
wished  to  enrich  near  enough  to  the  Big  House  for  his 
own  dogs  to  be  aware  of  any  invasion  by  strangers,  and 
he  never  had  a  sheep  worried  afterwards.  The  fore 
going  is  enough  to  suggest  the  whole  of  the  system. 
The  management  of  its  different  trains  and  many  sepa 
rate  departments  upon  an  up-to-date  railroad  was  not 
superior  in  punctuality  and  due  discharge  of  every  duty. 
He  lived  well,  entertained  hospitably,  and  kept  out  of 
debt.  Mr.  Thomas  E.  Watson  has  lately  given  a  graphic 
description  of  good  plantation  conduct,1  which  ought  to  be 

1  Bethany,  A  Story  of  the  Old  South,  10  sy. 


Toombs  225 

considered  by  all  those  who  now  believe  that  every  planter 
was  necessarily  slipshod  and  slovenly  in  his  vocation.  It 
was  a  good  training  school  for  the  born  business  man. 
Let  me  give  an  example  to  show  how  extensive  planting 
bred  experts  in  affairs.  The  Southern  Mutual  fire  in 
surance  company  —  its  principal  office  being  at  Athens, 
some  forty  miles  distant  from  Toombs's  home  —  at  the 
beginning  of  the  brothers'  war  had  for  some  years  almost 
driven  all  other  insurers  out  of  its  territory.  It  is  still 
such  a  favorite  therein  that  it  is  hardly  exaggeration  to 
state  that  its  competitors  must  content  themselves  with 
its  leavings.  The  plan  of  this  great  company  is  a  novel 
form  of  co-operative  insurance  —  indeed,  I  may  say,  it  is 
unique.  It  was  invented,  developed,  and  most  skilfully 
worked  forward  into  a  success  which  is  one  of  the  won 
ders  of  the  insurance  world.  The  men  who  did  this 
were  never  any  of  them  reputed  to  be  of  exceptional 
talents.  They  had  merely  grown  up  in  the  best  rural 
business  circles  of  the  old  south.  A  similar  fact  explains 
the  mastery  of  money,  banking,  and  related  matters 
which  Calhoun  acquired  in  a  locality  of  South  Carolina, 
not  forty  miles  distant  from  Washington,  Georgia.  It 
also  explains  why  Toombs,  bred  in  the  interior  and  far 
away  from  large  cities,  had  perfectly  acquired  the  com 
mercial  law;  had  complete  knowledge  of  the  principles 
and  practice  of  banking,  and  those  of  all  corporate  busi 
ness,  and  also  a  familiarity  with  the  fluctuating  values  of 
current  securities  equalling  that  of  experts. 

He  was  also,  as  I  know,  almost  a  lightning  calculator, 
and  fully  indoctrinated  in  the  science  of  accounts. 

Surely  this  man,  now  thirty-five,  is  ripe  for  congress. 

January  12,  1846,  the  United  States  house  of  repre 
sentatives  having  under  consideration  a  resolution  of 
notice  to  Great  Britain  to  abrogate  the  convention  be 
tween  her  and  the  United  States,  of  August  6,  1827,  rel- 

15 


226  The  Brothers'  War 

ative  to  the  region  commonly  called  Oregon,  Toombs 
made  his  congressional  debut. 

It  is  an  able  speech  for  a  new  member  —  especially 
for  one  grappling  with  a  question  peculiar  to  a  part  of 
the  country  so  far  away  from  his  own.  Convinced  that 
the  adoption  of  the  resolution  could  give  no  just  cause 
of  offence,  he  will  not  yield  anything  to  those  who 
merely  cry  up  the  blessings  of  peace.  The  warlike 
note  is  deep  and  earnest.  Then  comes  the  most  origi 
nal  part  of  the  speech.  Showing  great  familiarity  with 
the  facts  and  the  applicable  international  law,  he  does 
his  utmost  to  prove  that  the  title  of  each  country  is 
bad ;  and  it  seems  to  me  that  he  succeeds.  He  urges 
that  the  time  has  arrived  when  American  settlers  are 
ready  to  pour  into  Oregon.  "Terminate  this  convention 
and  our  settlements  will  give  us  good  title." 

Of  course  I  believe  that  Calhoun's  policy,  as  I  have 
explained  it  above,  was  the  true  one,  and  that  we  should 
have  continued  the  convention  as  to  joint  occupancy  as 
long  as  possible.  Toombs  was  bred  among  the  fol 
lowers  of  Crawford,  who  regarded  Calhoun  as  his  rival 
for  the  presidency,  and  I  doubt  if  he  ever  did  neutralize 
this  early  influence  enough  to  enable  himself  to  do  full 
justice  to  Calhoun.  And  as  a  further  palliation,  his 
combative  temperament  must  be  remembered,  and  also 
that  he  had  inherited  from  a  gallant  Revolutionary  father 
an  extreme  readiness  to  fight  England. 

July  I,  1846,  he  discusses  a  proposal  to  reduce  import 
duties  in  a  long  speech,  carefully  premeditated  as  is 
evident.  He  shows  great  familiarity  with  Adam  Smith, 
economical  principles,  fluctuations  in  prices  of  leading 
commodities,  and  the  consequences  of  affecting  legisla 
tion.  Its  main  interest  here  is  the  detailed  argument  in 
its  concluding  passages  against  the  expediency  of  free 
trade,  of  which  he  afterwards  became  an  advocate. 


Toombs  227 

January  8,  1847,  a  speech  on  the  proposed  increase 
of  the  army  is  his  next  considerable  effort.  He  de 
nounces  the  Mexican  war  as  unjust  in  its  origin,  but  he 
reprehends  its  feeble  conduct.  He  is  very  strong,  from 
the  southern  standpoint,  in  what  he  says  of  the  Wilmot 
proviso.  Here  is  a  passage  characteristic  of  Toombs 
later  on : 

"The  gentleman  from  New  York  [Grover]  asked  how  the 
south  could  complain  of  the  proposed  proviso  accompanying 
the  admission  of  new  territory,  when  the  arrangement  was  so 
very  fair  and  put  the  north  and  south  on  a  footing  of  perfect 
equality.  The  north  could  go  there  without  slaves,  and  so 
could  the  south.  Well,  I  will  try  it  the  other  way.  Suppose 
the  territory  to  be  open  to  all ;  then  southerners  could  go  and 
carry  slaves  with  them,  and  so  could  northerners.  Would  not 
this  be  just  as  equal?  [Much  laughter.]  I  will  not  answer  for 
the  strength  of  the  argument,  but  it  is  as  good  as  what  we  of 
the  south  get.  [Laughter.] " 

Winthrop,  who  followed,  commences  by  deprecating 
the  necessity  that  exposed  him  to  the  disadvantage  of 
contrast  with  a  speech  which  had  attracted  so  much  at 
tention  and  admiration.  And  Stephens  praised  the 
effort  greatly.1 

December  21,  1847,  Toombs  offered  a  resolution  in 
the  house,  that  neither  the  honor  nor  interest  of  the 
republic  demand  the  dismemberment  of  Mexico,  nor 
the  annexation  of  any  of  her  territory  as  an  indispen 
sable  condition  to  the  restoration  of  peace. 

His  Taylor  speech  of  July  I,  1848,  evinces  warm  whig 
partisanship. 

In  his  first  years  at  the  bar  he  loitered  a  while  as  a 
speaker.  And  one  who  studies  his  record  in  congress 
discerns  that  it  is  some  two  years  before  he  commences 
to  feel  easy  as  a  member  of  the  house.  The  speeches 

1  Johnston  and  Browne's  Life  of  A.  H.  Stephens,  218. 


228  The  Brothers'  War 

which  I  have  mentioned  above,  with  the  solitary  excep 
tion  of  that  of  January  8,  1847,  are  labored  communi 
cation  of  cram  rather  than  the  peculiar  language  of  the 
speaker  who,  when  I  commenced  to  observe  him  a  few 
years  later  on  the  stump,  had  become  a  marvel  both  of 
strong  thinking  and  fit  expression  extempore. 

I  detect  a  gleam  of  the  coming  man,  when  August  4, 
1848,  and  February  20,  1849,  he  exhibits  his  inveterate 
hostility  to  maintaining  and  increasing  an  army  in  time 
of  peace.  Next  he  begins  his  lifelong  war  upon  high 
salaries,  and  the  extravagance  and  waste  of  congres 
sional  printing.  Note  what  he  says  February  29,  1848, 
advocating  reduction  of  salaries  of  patent  examiners; 
and  his  denouncing  the  evil  of  congress's  publishing 
agricultural  works,  in  two  speeches,  the  one  made  March 
20,  1848,  the  other  January  18,  1849.  These  are  short, 
but  strong,  and  their  forcible  style  gives  sure  promise 
that  the  true  Toombs  is  at  hand.  He  suddenly  found 
his  real  self  in  December,  1849,  when  his  lead  towards 
secession  commenced,  as  I  shall  detail  later.  After  that 
date  he  soon  becomes  one  of  the  strongest  and  most 
influential  members;  and  especially  one  whose  speech 
greatly  attracts  audience.  I  must  support  this  assertion 
by  the  record.  With  my  limited  space  I  must  be  very 
brief.  My  trouble  is  that  the  many  examples  which  I 
could  use  are  all  so  good  it  is  hard  to  decide  what  must 
be  left  out.  While  I  shall  always  give  dates,  so  that  my 
statements  can  be  checked  by  reference  to  the  Globe, 
I  need  not  confine  myself  strictly  to  the  order  of  time. 

His  mastery  of  parliamentary  law  is  a  good  subject 
to  begin  with. 

January  18,  1850,  it  was  moved  that  the  sergeant-at- 
arms  act  as  doorkeeper  until  one  be  elected.  The  chair 
decided  that  the  question  affected  the  organization  of 
the  house  and  was  therefore  one  of  privilege.  On  an 


Toombs  229 

appeal  there  was  much  discussion.     Here  is  the  part 
played  by  Toombs: 

"  Mr.  Toombs.  I  apprehend  that  the  speaker  has  committed 
error.  This  is  not  an  office  known  to  the  law ;  it  was  created 
only  by  the  rules  of  the  house.  The  office  of  speaker  and  clerk 
alone  are  known  to  the  law.  ...  It  is  not  every  officer  whom 
by  their  rules  they  may  choose  to  appoint,  that  is  necessary  to 
the  organization  of  the  house.  Suppose  that  by  a  rule  they  pro 
vided  for  the  appointment  of  a  bootblack ;  could  a  resolution 
for  his  appointment  be  made  a  question  of  privilege  to  arrest 
and  override  all  other  business  ? 

Mr.  Bayley  inquired  of  the  gentleman  from  Georgia  if  a  rule 
was  not  as  clearly  obligatory  upon  the  house  as  a  law. 

Mr.  Toombs.  It  is ;  but  its  execution  is  not  a  question  of 
organization." 

A  reversal  was  the  result. 

The  following  took  place  February  20,  1851,  and  is  a 
good  illustration  of  his  forcible  way  of  putting  things : 

"  Mr.  Toombs.  (Interrupting  Mr.  Stanton)  called  the  gentle 
man  to  order.  The  committee  ought  not  to  tolerate  this  custom 
of  speaking  to  matters  not  immediately  before  it. 

The  Chairman.  Does  the  gentleman  from  Georgia  raise 
the  point  of  order  that  the  remarks  of  the  gentleman  from  Ten 
nessee  are  not  in  order  because  they  have  no  reference  to  the 
bill  before  the  committee. 

Mr.  Toombs.  My  point  is  that  debate  upon  steamboats  is 
not  in  order  upon  a  pension  bill. 

The  Chairman.  I  decide  the  gentleman  is  in  order.  It 
has  been  invariable  practice  to  permit  such  debate  in  committee 
of  the  whole  on  the  state  of  the  union. 

Mr.  Toombs.  The  practice  may  have  been  permitted ;  but 
it  was  wrong." 

On  appeal  by  Toombs  the  chairman  was  reversed. 
Though  Toombs —  a  whig — had  stubbornly  opposed 
the  candidacy  of  Howell  Cobb  —  a  democrat  —  he  soon 


230  The  Brothers'  War 

became  to  the  latter,  after  his  election  as  speaker,  the 
leading  parliamentary  authority.  Often  there  would  be 
confused  clamor  and  wild  disorder,  nearly  every  member 
proposing  something.  At  a  loss  himself,  Cobb  would 
look  at  Toombs  and  see  him  intently  conning  his  Jeffer 
son.  Soon  he  would  rise,  and  being  recognized  by  the 
speaker  at  once,  would  forthwith  suggest  the  right  thing. 

The  foregoing  was  often  told  by  Cobb,  as  his  friends 
have  informed  me. 

February  24,  1853,  he  shows  up  the  bad  consequences 
of  overpaid  offices,  the  duties  of  which  the  holders  can 
hire  others  to  do  for  half  of  its  compensation ;  and 
March  2,  the  same  year,  he  thus  speaks  of  a  cognate 
evil: 

"The  gentleman  seems  to  go  upon  the  principle  that  as 
many  clerks  with  high  salaries  should  be  attached  to  one  office 
as  to  any  other  —  the  principle  of  equalizing  the  patronage  of 
these  different  offices  without  regard  to  the  species  of  labor  re 
quired  by  each." 

I  append  here  a  collection  of  short  extracts  from 
Toombs's  speeches  in  the  lower  house,  which  illustrate 
his  power  to  tickle  the  ear  by  striking  presentation, 
epigram,  and  novel  expression: 

Debate  always  Harmless.  "A  little  more  experience  will 
show  the  gentleman  that  he  is  mistaken,  and  that  the  absence 
of  discussion  here  does  not  accelerate  adjournment.  The  most 
harmless  time  which  is  spent  by  the  house,  he  will  find,  is  that 
spent  in  discussion."  February  17,  1852. 

Nominees  of  National  Conventions.  "  What  are  the  fruits  of 
your  national  conventions  ?  .  .  .  They  have  brought  you  a  Van 
Buren,  a  Harrison,  a  Polk,  and  a  General  Taylor.  ...  I  mean 
no  disparagement  to  any  one  of  these.  All  of  them  but  one 
[Van  Buren]  have  paid  the  last  debt  of  nature,  and  the  one  who 
survives,  unfortunately  for  himself,  has  survived  his  reputation." 
July  3,  1852. 


Toombs  231 

Two  Classes  of  Economists.  "  There  is  a  class  of  economists 
who  will  favor  any  measure  by  which  they  can  cut  off  wrong  or 
extravagant  expenditures.  But  there  is  another  class  who  are 
always  preaching  economy  —  who  are  always  ready  to  apply 
the  rule  of  economy  and  get  economical  in  every  case  except 
that  before  the  house."  February  17,  1852. 

Principles  of  Banking.  "  If  we  intend  to  regulate  the  busi 
ness  of  banking  in  this  District,  the  bill  does  too  little  ;  if  we  do 
not,  it  does  too  much.  As  it  does  not  seek  to  control  generally 
the  business  of  banking,  but  permits  the  issue  of  notes  greater 
than  five  dollars,  it  violates  the  principles  of  unrestrained  bank 
ing,  but  does  not  go  to  the  extent  of  regulation  by  law.  I  think 
the  public  are  more  likely  to  suffer,  and  to  a  greater  extent,  from 
bank  issues  above  five  dollars  than  those  under  that  amount." 
January  n,  1853. 

The  Dahlonega  Mint,  in  his  own  State.  "I  believe  the 
mints  at  Dahlonega,  Charlotte,  and  New  York  are  each  unneces 
sary.  ...  I  do  not  desire  to  continue  abuses  in  Georgia  any 
more  than  in  New  York.  I  am  willing  to  pull  up  all  abuses  by 
the  root.  ...  I  think  the  existing  mint  is  adequate  to  the 
wants  of  the  country."  February  17,  1853. 

Personal  Explanations  in  Debate  of  Appropriations.  "I  be 
lieve  that  with  all  the  abuses  we  have  had  in  the  discussion  of 
appropriation  bills,  we  have  never  had  personal  explanations." 
February  21,  1850. 

Toombs  is  now  about  to  leave  the  lower  for  the  upper 
house.  He  has  grown  in  all  directions  in  the  qualifi 
cations  and  powers  marking  the  good  representative. 
There  is  no  other  man  in  the  house,  from  either  section, 
whose  ability  is  superior  or  whose  promise  greater. 
Three  days  before  his  career  in  the  United  States  senate 
begins,  he  made  the  following  appeal,  protesting  against 
hasty  and  reckless  expenditure,  which  seems  to  me  a 
model  of  matter  and  extemporaneous  expression : 

"  In  this  bill  the  fortification  bill  is  introduced ;  and  provision 
made  for  private  wagon  ways  for  Oregon  and  California.  There 


232  The  Brothers'  War 

is  in  it  an  appropriation  of  $100,000  to  pay  somebody  for  the 
discovery  of  ether.  You  have  a  provision  for  a  Pacific  railroad  ; 
and  you  have  job  upon  job  to  plunder  the  government  in  the 
military  bill ;  —  and  the  representatives  of  the  people  are  called 
upon  to  vote  on  all  these  grave  questions  under  five  minutes' 
speeches.  You  do  gross  injustice  to  yourselves ;  you  betray 
great  interests  of  the  people  when  you  act  upon  such  important 
measures  in  this  manner.  Let  the  house  reject  the  amend 
ments  ;  let  the  senate  devote  its  time  to  maturing  bills,  and  send 
them  to  us  to  be  acted  upon  deliberately ;  and  then  whichever 
way  congress  determines  for  itself,  it  will  have  a  right  so  to  do. 
But  to  act  upon  them  in  this  way,  is  not  only  to  abdicate  our 
powers,  but  to  abdicate  our  duties.  Put  your  hands  upon  these 
amendments  and  strike  them  out."  March  i,  1853. 

Manifestly  all  that  he  had  learned  of  the  pending  bill 
was  from  having  heard  it  read.  The  instant  apprehension 
and  accurate  statement,  and  the  exhaustion  of  the  subject 
in  far  shorter  time  than  his  small  allowance  —  these  recall 
what  I  often  heard  Stephens  say,  "  No  one  else  has  ever 
made  such  perfect  and  telling  impromptus  as  Toombs." 

His  famous  Hamilcar  outburst  did  not  consume  all  of 
his  five  minutes. 

Toombs  was  United  States  senator  from  March  4,  1853, 
until  the  spring  of  1861.  His  peculiarities  must  be  sug 
gested.  Although  he  was  perhaps  the  ablest  lawyer  in 
the  senate,  loved  the  profession  with  all  the  ardor  of 
first  love,  and  had  great  cases  with  large  fees  offered 
him  every  day,  he  resolutely  subordinated  law  practice 
to  his  congressional  duties.  He  did  much  practice,  but 
it  was  all  in  the  vacations  of  congress.  He  did  not  seek 
office.  There  is  not  to  be  found,  so  far  as  I  know,  a 
trace  of  any  aspiration  of  his  during  his  congressional 
career  for  other  than  the  place  of  senator.  If  on  a 
special  committee,  he  worked  energetically;  but  he 
avoided  the  standing  committees.  He  says : 


Toombs  233 

"  It  is  only  occasionally  that  I  go  to  the  committee  meetings  to 
make  a  quorum  to  act  on  important  business.  I  do  not  attend 
them  one  day  more  than  I  am  obliged  to,  for  I  am  quite  sure 
it  is  not  my  duty  unless  charged  with  a  certain  subject.  This 
whole  machinery  is  a  means  of  transferring  the  legislation  of 
the  country  from  those  to  whose  hands  the  constitution  commits  it 
to  irresponsible  juntos.  .  .  .  I  say  general  standing  committees, 
without  any  exception,  are  great  nuisances,  and  they  ought 
to  be  abolished.  .  .  .  They  are  not  proper  bodies  to  exer 
cise  legislative  powers.  They  are  not  known  in  the  country 
from  which  we  derive  our  institutions.  The  English  have  no 
standing  committees.  They  raise  special  committees  on  special 
objects."1  February  1 8,  1859. 

"  The  general  business  of  the  country,"  as  he  ex 
pressed  it,  January  10,  1859,  that  was  his  concern.  Each 
subject  requiring  the  action  of  the  senate,  whether  im 
portant  or  trivial,  received  his  industrious  attention,  as 
his  course  and  language  on  the  floor  always  show ;  and 
he  evidently  feels  it  his  duty  to  furnish  the  body  on  all 
questions  the  utmost  instruction  and  aid  that  he  can 
possibly  give.  He  had  no  ambition  to  be  the  author 
of  novel  measures  —  he  was  strenuous  only  to  bestow 
upon  every  subject  of  current  legislation  the  proper  con 
sideration.  His  premeditated  efforts  are  but  few.  He 
never  shows  any  distrust  of  his  offhand  faculty.  He  takes 
part  in  nearly  all  the  discussions,  often  being  up  several 
times  the  same  day  on  the  same  subject.  He  is  seldom 
lengthy,  hardly  ever  away  from  the  point  needing  ex 
planation,  and  never,  never  dull.  Generally  he  comes 
with  correcting  fact  or  enlightening  principle,  and  it  is  sel 
dom  that  his  matter  and  words  are  not  both  impressive. 
I  found  it  well  in  writing  the  Life  mentioned  above  to 
present  the  most  of  his  senatorial  course  by  assorting  his 

1  Toombs  thus  anticipates  the  trenchant  but  kindly  criticism  by  Wood- 
row  Wilson  of  congressional  ways  of  governing.  Congressional  Gov. 
58-192,  and  in  other  places. 


234  The  Brothers'  War 

utterances  under  their  proper  heads,  with  the  briefest 
possible  comment,  rather  than  to  narrate  chronologically 
in  the  common  way  of  biographers.  In  his  speeches  it 
is  only  now  and  then  that  he  is  steadily  progressive  as 
he  was  in  the  Iowa  contested  election  case.  His  advo 
cacy  or  opposition  is  generally  founded  upon  a  principle, 
and  from  this  principle  —  usually  central  and  self-evi 
dent  —  the  different  passages  radiate  in  aphorisms,  self- 
supporting  paragraphs,  and  detached  arguments,  —  this 
common  radiation  being  their  only  connection.  Accord 
ingly  if  you  know  what  is  the  particular  subject  that  is 
under  discussion,  a  part  taken  at  random  anywhere  from 
any  of  his  extempore  speeches  is  nearly  always  complete 
in  itself  and  fully  intelligible.  Therefore  we  can  have 
him  to  give  in  his  own  words,  in  a  comparatively  small 
space,  an  approximately  full  collection  of  the  rich  and 
varied  teachings  of  his  senatorial  career,  although  our 
chrestomathy  would  appear  to  one  putting  it  beside  the 
unmutilated  report  of  the  Globe  as  a  beggarly  and  je 
june  abstract  I  know  of  no  other  public  man  with  whom 
this  can  be  as  satisfactorily  done.  Of  course  the  compi 
lation  made  by  me,  as  just  told,  cannot  be  given  here. 
He  challenged  every  bad  and  defended  every  good 
measure.  He  is  on  record  both  by  speech,  nearly  always 
hitting  the  nail  on  the  head,  and  by  vote,  nearly  always 
right,  upon  every  one.  What  he  did  in  the  house  de 
serves  close  attention ;  but  his  actings  and  doings  in  the 
senate,  to  which  he  belonged  from  March  4,  1853,  until 
shortly  after  his  famous  speech  of  January  7,  1861,  when 
he  left  to  go  with  his  seceding  State,  are  such  that  I 
challenge  all  students  of  history  to  produce  a  single 
example  of  such  earnest  grappling  with  and  able  hand 
ling  of  so  many  matters  of  importance  in  so  short  a  time 
—  not  eight  full  years  —  by  any  member  of  ancient  or 
modern  parliaments. 


Toombs  235 

Having  now,  I  hope,  aroused  my  readers  to  some 
faint  conception  of  Toombs's  greatness  as  a  senator  in 
non-sectional  matters,  I  must  bring  that  greatness  into 
fuller  view,  if  I  can.  I  therefore  add  to  the  foregoing 
catalogue  the  rough  character  sketch  next  following. 

We  begin  with  his  devotion  to  his  duties.  One  ex 
amining  the  Globe  will  hardly  find  any  other  member 
who  calls  as  often  for  the  reading  of  the  reports  accom 
panying  bills  to  pay  private  claims,  and  such  other  small 
matters ;  and  he  will  always  observe  that  his  immediate 
comment  shows  that  he  has  fully  taken  in  what  has  been 
read.  He  said  once,  "  I  have  been  reproached  half  a 
dozen  times  within  the  last  two  days  as  being  rather 
fractious  because  I  desired  to  understand  the  business 
on  which  I  was  called  to  vote."  August  3,  1854. 

The  alert  and  intelligent  vigilance  which  he  gives 
every  measure  proposed  seems  superior  to  that  of  all 
his  colleagues.  They  acknowledge  this  by  the  many 
inquiries  they  make  of  him  for  information  as  to  pend 
ing  bills.  Thus  June  20,  1 860,  Green  asks  him  where 
is  the  amendment?  when  was  it  adopted?  has  the  house 
disagreed  to  it?  has  it  been  before  a  committee?  etc., 
and  every  query  is  answered  without  hesitation.  This 
but  examples  how  the  other  senators  very  often  made 
a  convenience  of  Toombs's  accurate  note  of  what  was 
passing. 

He  shows  a  like  readiness  upon  facts  of  history  — 
especially  English  and  American  —  on  clauses  of  the 
constitution,  or  statutes,  or  treaties,  provisions  of  the 
law  of  nations,  principles  of  political  economy,  institu 
tions,  commercial  systems,  customs  of  particular  nations, 
and  all  such  topics  as  may  illustrate  the  pending  ques 
tion,  however  suddenly  it  may  have  risen.  And  so  he 
discusses  every  matter,  grave  or  trivial,  with  perfect 
grasp  of  the  proposition  submitted,  and  with  fullness 


236  The  Brothers*  War 

of  knowledge  and  understanding.  He  avoids  strained 
and  over-ingenious  reasoning.  Plain  and  safe  men  never 
disparaged  his  arguments  by  calling  them  hair-splitting 
or  metaphysical.  But  though  he  took  his  stand  upon 
the  palpable  meaning  of  undisputed  facts  and  the  most 
plainly  applicable  doctrines  of  reason  and  justice,  he 
displayed  an  unparalleled  power  of  formulating  in  intel 
ligible  and  striking  words  the  key  principles  of  common 
affairs.  This  gift  always  found  instant  appreciation  with 
practical  men,  and  they  admired  it  as  genius.  Though 
he  has  his  eye  ever  open  to  principle,  he  is  the  very 
opposite  of  the  mere  doctrinaire.  He  is  practical,  and 
always  pushing  business  on,  except  when  the  bills  de 
pleting  the  treasury  —  to  use  his  favorite  name  for  them 
—  are  up  and  likely  to  pass  because  of  the  coalition  be 
tween  the  opposition  and  the  fishy  democrats  which  he 
is  always  exposing  with  exhaustless  variety  of  language. 
Only  then  he  prefers  to  do  nothing. 

As  to  his  own  measures,  he  changes  words,  accepts 
amendments  —  in  short  makes  every  concession  which 
will  gain  him  the  substance  of  his  desire. 

We  will  here  say  a  little  of  him  as  a  speaker.  He 
thus  describes  himself: 

"  I  speak  rapidly ;  but  the  idea  which  I  intend  to  utter  gene 
rally  comes  out,  sometimes  perhaps  with  too  much  plainness  of 
;    speech.     What  I  say,  I  mean  ;  and  the  whole  of  what  I  mean 
generally  gets  out."    July  30,  1856. 

He  shows  in  the  following  a  contemptuous  opinion  of 
written  speeches : 

"  As  a  general  rule  a  speech  that  is  fit  to  be  spoken  is  not  fit 
to  be  printed,  and  one  fit  to  be  printed  is  not  fit  to  be  spoken. 
.  .  .  The  senator  from  New  York  [Seward]  comes  in  with  his 
already  in  type ;  other  gentlemen  around  me,  on  both  sides  of  the 
house,  from  all  sections  of  the  union,  who  think  proper  to  write 


Toombs  237 

essays,  bring  them  here  and  read  them  to  the  senate.  ...     I  am 
not  objecting  to  their  character,  but  I  would  rather  read  them  in    , 
my  room.    Of  course  nobody  pays  any  attention  to  them  here." 
April  22,  1858. 

He  did  not  habitually  correct  the  report  of  his 
speeches,  as  he  says  May  13,  1858;  at  the  same  time 
entering  a  general  disclaimer  as  to  all  that  he  does  not 
report  himself.  This  disclaimer  must  not  be  pressed  too 
far.  If  you  are  familiar  with  the  man  you  need  not  fear 
being  led  astray  by  the  inaccuracies,  the  number  of 
which  he  greatly  exaggerates.  His  stamp  is  so  unmis 
takable  that  you  always  know  what  is  his.  Extempore  - 
discussion  was  his  forte.  Therefore  nearly  all  the  quo 
tations  I  use  in  the  Life  which  I  have  written  I  intention 
ally  take  from  his  shorter,  impromptu,  and  evidently 
unrevised  speeches.  These  unlabored  effusions,  it 
matters  not  how  dry  or  small  the  particular  theme  may 
be,  have  generally  the  double  merit  of  showing  the  true 
solution  and  refreshing  with  figure,  apt  illustration,  or 
wit1 

1  What  he  says  July  29,  1857,  on  death  of  Preston  S.  Brooks  is  a 
good  example  of  the  forced  and  labored  style  of  his  set  speeches. 
Stephens  often  said  that  his  set  speeches  were  failures.  And  unless 
they  were  made,  as  that  on  the  invasion  of  States,  that  on  the  duty  of 
congress  to  protect  slavery  in  the  Territories,  and  his  justification  of 
secession,  January  7,  1861,  under  the  excitement  of  a  great  cause,  work 
ing  the  same  effect  upon  him  as  the  ardor  of  extemporaneous  effort,  his 
set  speeches  are  below  the  mark.  And  I  wish  he  had  more  carefully 
revised  the  three  just  mentioned,  following  the  example  of  Cicero,  Ers- 
kine  and  Webster,  who  habitually  corrected  and  improved  their  words 
after  they  had  been  spoken.  He  does  not  seem  to  have  given  his  good 
speeches  —  the  extemporaneous  ones  —  any  systematic  correction.  Of 
all  speakers  and  orators  I  ever  knew  or  heard  of,  he  has  used  the  file  the 
least.  It  is  my  belief  that  he  did  not  know  how  to  use  it.  Had  he  but 
polished  just  some  of  his  best  unpremeditated  efforts ;  as  for  instances 
his  first  speech  for  the  retired  naval  officers ;  his  most  important  utter 
ances  under  various  heads  of  internal  improvements  ;  his  humorous  anti- 
pension  harangues;  and  his  titanic  struggle  in  vain  with  his  own  party 
to  keep  Harlan  seated  —  what  a  find  they  would  be  for  the  school  speech 


238  The  Brothers*  War 

In  important  debate  he  is  conspicuously  the  strongest 
man  in  the  senate.  We  will  run  over  the  leading  ones: 

July  28,  1854,  a  bill  containing  appropriations  for 
places  in  nearly  every  one  of  the  States  came  up. 
Through  the  long  debate  he  evinces  uncommon  power 
and  readiness.  He  is  too  tart  in  rejoinder,  and  too 
much  gives  the  rein  to  invective. 

In  the  two  days'  debate  of  the  mail  steamer  appro 
priation —  February  27,  28,  1855,  —  he  distinguishes 
himself. 

February  7,  1856,  Toombs,  with  Hunter  and  Toucey, 
supports  a  resolution  proposing  the  origination  of  appro 
priation  bills  in  the  Senate.  Sumner  and  Seward  take 
the  other  side.  The  argument  of  Seward  is  very  elabo 
rate,  notwithstanding  his  declaration  at  the  outset  that 
he  is  wholly  unprepared.  It  is  demolished  by  Toombs 
in  his  most  crushing  style.  Note,  too,  how  accurate  the 
latter  is  as  to  the  proceedings  of  the  constitutional  con- 
books  of  the  future !  His  lecture  on  slavery,  delivered  in  Tremont 
Temple,  Boston,  January  24,  1859,  —  a  good  copy  of  which  is  given  by 
Stephens  (The  War  between  the  States,  vol.  i.  625-647)  — is  the  best  speci 
men  extant,  within  my  knowledge,  of  his  deliberate  style.  If  I  may  make 
such  a  distinction,  it  was  carefully  revised,  but  never  corrected.  The 
reader  will  find  it,  I  believe,  the  very  ablest  of  all  the  many  defences  of 
slavery  in  the  south. 

Mrs.  Davis  states  that  during  the  times  of  excitement  concerning  the 
compromise  of  1850,  "  He  [Toombs]  would  sit  with  one  hand  full  of  the 
reporter's  notes  of  his  speeches,  for  correction,"  with  a  French  play  in 
the  other,  over  which  he  was  roaring  with  laughter.  (Memoir  of  Jefferson 
Davis,  vol.  i.  411.)  As  his  speech  of  December  13,  1849,  an(^  tne  Hamil- 
car  speech  of  June  next  following,  need  very  little  correction,  I  incline  to 
believe  that  he  did  at  least  try  to  revise  them.  Naturally  leading  such 
a  novel  movement  as  he  then  was  —  it  will  be  fully  explained  a  little  later 
on  —  he  would  desire  to  send  forth  his  views  in  only  carefully  considered 
words,  and  probably  he  corrected  the  proofs  of  the  two  speeches  just 
mentioned  with  something  like  diligence.  In  his  pleadings,  law-briefs, 
sketches  of  proposed  statutes,  letters,  etc.,  of  which  I  saw  much  in  his 
last  years,  he  was  so  palpably  indifferent  towards  improving  his  first  draft 
that  one  might  know  it  came  from  lifelong  habit. 


Toombs  239 

vention,  how  familiar  he  is  with  the  abuses  of  wild 
appropriations  which  he  is  trying  to  correct,  and  how 
graphically  he  depicts  them. 

July  28,  1856,  the  Black  Lake  harbor  appropriation 
is  the  subject.  All  that  he  says  is  noticeable  for  power; 
especially  his  replies  to  interruptions  by  Pugh,  Wade, 
and  Cass.  Though  the  bill  was  passed  over  his  head, 
as  you  read  the  report  you  feel  that  his  was  the  actual 
triumph. 

July  30,  1856,  another  debate  of  river  and  harbor  im 
provements.  It  is  begun  by  Hunter.  Benjamin  takes 
the  lead  in  support  of  the  bill ;  Toombs  joins  discussion 
with  the  latter,  who  by  his  coolness  and  adroitness  for  a 
while  foils  his  adversary ;  but  soon  Toombs  gets  his  feet 
firmly  on  the  constitution,  and  still  more  firmly  upon  the 
injustice  of  extorting  the  support  of  commerce  from 
other  interests,  and  he  is  resistless.  The  disputants 
often  put  questions  to  one  another.  Toombs's  prompt 
ness  to  answer  every  adverse  position  is  a  taking  exhi 
bition.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  many  sparkling  sentences 
are  struck  out  of  him  by  the  incessant  hammering  of  the 
others.  At  the  close,  he  seems  either  to  have  wearied 
or  silenced  his  opponents.  One  cannot  but  feel  that 
this  is  no  arena  for  a  man  who  can  make  only  written 
speeches. 

August  4,  1856,  the  subject  being  the  improvement  of 
the  Mississippi,  Toombs  urges  that  the  valley  is  pros 
perous,  and  it  should  improve  its  river.  The  exami 
nation  he  gives  the  question  is  profoundly  searching. 
Towards  the  conclusion  of  the  debate,  Cass  reads  the 
counter  doctrine  of  Calhoun,  in  the  report  of  latter  to 
the  Memphis  convention,  his  reason  being,  as  he  says : 
"  I  will  confess  frankly  my  object  in  reading  it.  The 
senator  from  Georgia  has  treated  the  question  with 
great  ability ;  and  I  want  the  same  vehicle  that  carries 


240  The  Brothers'  War 

his  remarks  to  the  public  to  carry  also  the  opinions  and 
views  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  whose  authority  is  vastly  better 
than  mine." 

Through  the  whole  of  this  debate  the  faculty  and  force 
exhibited  by  Toombs  are  wonderful  even  for  him. 

Consider  all  that  he  says  of  the  proper  management  of 
the  post-office,  February  28,  1859. 

January  30,  1860,  there  was  an  animated  debate,  which 
occupied  the  morning  and  was  renewed  in  the  evening. 
The  vigorous  blows  which  he  deals  the  coalition  pass 
ing  the  appropriations  —  ever  the  theme  of  his  severest 
reprehension  —  and  the  review  he  makes  of  each  item 
in  the  appropriation  bill,  taken  all  in  all,  are  high  feats. 

His  conduct,  January  6,  1857,  in  the  Iowa  contested 
election  manifests  such  rare  courage  against  party  and 
section  for  the  right  that  it  must  be  told  at  some  length. 
We  think  it  belongs  with  the  more  important  matters 
just  noticed  rather  than  to  its  chronological  place. 

Harlan,  a  republican,  had  been  sitting  for  some  time 
as  a  senator  from  Iowa.  There  was  no  contestant.  The 
adverse  report  was  grounded  upon  a  protest  of  the  Iowa 
senate,  stating  that  that  body  did  not  participate  in  the 
so-called  joint  convention  which  had  affected  to  elect 
Harlan.  It  appeared  that  both  houses  of  the  Iowa 
legislature  had  met  in  joint  convention,  had  balloted 
without  result,  and  the  convention  had  adjourned  to 
meet  at  10  A.  M.  the  next  day.  On  this  day  the  senate 
—  the  majority  of  its  members  manifestly  being  demo 
crats  and  opposed  to  the  sense  of  the  joint  majority  — 
met  in  their  own  chamber  and  adjourned  before  the 
hour  appointed  for  the  assembling  of  the  convention. 
But  a  majority  of  the  senate  were  present  in  the  con 
vention  when  it  made  the  election  —  several  of  them 
having  been  brought  in  by  the  sergeant-at-arms,  and 
who  protested  that  they  did  not  act  in  the  proceedings. 


Toombs  241 

In  the  United  States  senate  the  democrats  were  in  a 
majority,  but  Toombs,  who  was  always  above  mere  party 
considerations,  supported  the  cause  of  Harlan,  saying 
afterwards,  "  I  maintained  his  title,  black  Republican 
though  he  was,  because  I  believed  it  stood  on  right." 
February  15,  1858.  The  decision  was  against  Harlan; 
but  I  do  not  think  that  an  unbiased  man  who  regards 
mere  technical  rules  as  no  more  than  the  instruments 
of  justice,  will  fail  to  concur  with  Toombs.  His  treat 
ment  of  the  subject  is  extremely  good  and  entertaining. 
Every  material  fact  is  given  prominence ;  every  impor 
tant  distinction  taken,  as,  for  instance,  that  the  conven 
tion,  as  it  could  do  no  legislative  act  and  did  not  require 
the  concurrence  of  the  executive,  was  not  really  the 
legislature,  but  only  the  persons  constituting  the  legis 
lature  acting  in  a  body  of  their  own  as  electors;  and 
further,  his  position  that  after  the  convention  had  organ 
ized  it  could  proceed  with  the  election  as  long  as  it  had 
a  quorum.  Having  completed  a  most  lawyer-like  and 
concatenated  argument,  which  is  a  wonderful  exhibition 
of  concise  and  exhaustive  extemporaneous  reasoning, 
he  rises  to  the  higher  plane  of  statesmanship  and  jus 
tice,  in  which  he  shows  in  a  vivid  light  what  a  monstrous 
evil  it  would  be  to  approve  the  factious  withdrawal  of 
the  majority  of  the  Iowa  senate  from  the  convention. 
Note  especially  the  many  questions  asked  him  by  dif 
ferent  members,  and  the  readiness  and  satisfactoriness 
of  his  answers.1  It  is  all  in  all  one  of  the  best  samples 
of  Toombs's  dispassionate  debate  to  which  I  can  refer. 
Very  probably  the  democrats  would  have  done  right  by 
Harlan  had  it  not  been  for  Bayard's  argument,  the  spe 
cial  effectiveness  of  which  was  the  use  he  made  of  the 
case  of  his  own  election,  in  1839,  to  the  United  States 
senate  by  the  Delaware  legislature.  As  he  stated  it,  it 

1  Third  Session,  240-244. 
16 


242  The  Brothers'  War 

was  this :  There  being  a  majority  of  one  in  the  Dela 
ware  house  of  representatives  in  favor  of  the  opposite 
party,  a  majority  of  that  house  refused  to  go  into  the 
joint  balloting.  Bayard  was  elected,  and  it  was  main 
tained  by  his  party,  the  democrats,  that  a  majority  of 
the  members  of  the  two  houses  had  authority  to  pro 
ceed;  but  he  hesitated,  and  at  last  consulted  Silas 
Wright,  of  New  York.  The  latter  gave  a  decided 
opinion  that  such  an  election  was  invalid.  Whereupon 
Bayard  succumbed,  and  his  State  was  without  a  senator 
for  two  years.  I  cannot  help  feeling  that  if  Wright  had 
considered  the  subject  and  bottomed  it  on  true  principle, 
as  Toombs  afterwards  did,  Bayard  would  have  settled 
down  in  the  opposite  conclusion,  and  he  and  Toombs  in 
concert  would  have  forced  their  fellow-democrats  of  the 
United  States  senate  into  doing  justice  to  an  opponent. 

Many  have  been  superior  to  Toombs  in  making  per 
fect  orations,  but  it  is  hard  to  find  in  any  deliberative 
body  a  match  for  him  as  a  debater.  Charles  Fox  was 
a  giant;  but  he  did  not  have  the  strength,  the  grip,  the 
never  remitted  activity,  the  infinite  thrust,  the  parry,  illus 
tration,  wit,  epigram,  and  invincible  appeal  to  conscience, 
feeling,  and  reason  —  in  short,  the  complete  supply  and 
command  of  all  resources  that  marked  Toombs  as  fore 
most  in  the  pancratium  of  parliamentary  discussion.  It 
ought  to  add  inexpressible  brightness  to  his  fame  that 
he  sought  for  no  triumphs  except  those  of  justice  and 
good  policy.  He  was  far  more  than  a  mere  logician  in 
debate.  His  brilliant  snatches,  his  sudden  uprisings,  his 
thawing  humor,  and  flashing  wit  —  all  these  did  their 
part  as  effectively  in  winning  favor  and  working  suasion 
as  his  array  of  facts  and  his  ratiocination  did  theirs  in 
convincing.  He  was  too  prone  to  use  harsh  language 
towards  the  other  side.  There  are  many  places  in  his 
speeches  where  I  wish  he  had  used  soft  instead  of  bitter 


Toombs  243 

words.  That  he  could  observe  perfect  parliamentary 
propriety  there  are  proofs  in  the  Globe.  Especially 
would  I  refer  to  his  behavior  in  the  Harlan  debate, 
spoken  of  a  moment  ago,  and  his  discussion  of  the 
Indiana  senatorial  election,  June  n,  1858.  Note  the 
last  especially  (belonging  volume,  2943-2947)  for  his 
moderation,  courtesy,  and  invitation  of  question  while 
he  is  most  ably  supporting  the  central  proposition  he 
had  before  urged  in  the  Iowa  case. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  his  occasional  vehemence  and  acrimo 
nious  language,  he  seems  to  have  the  respect  and  regard 
of  even  his  most  decided  political  opponents.  Wade  and 
he  recognize  each  the  great  merit  of  the  other.  Once 
after  applauding  his  honesty  and  frankness,  Toombs 
says  of  him  :  "  He  and  I  can  agree  about  everything  on 
earth  until  we  get  to  our  sable  population,  I  do  believe/''1 
March  22,  1858. 

Wade  had  already  said  this  of  Toombs  :  "  I  commend 
the  bold  and  direct  manner  in  which  the  senator  from 
Georgia  always  attacks  his  opponents."  February  28, 
1857. 

February  8,  1858,  Fessenden  said,  "  I  am  very  happy 
to  get  that  admission  from  the  senator  from  Georgia. 
It  is  made  with  his  customary  frankness  and  clearness." 

Hale  also  respects  him.  January  23,  1857,  he  says 
that  Toombs  ought  to  have  been  on  the  bench,  compli 
menting  his  desire  for  justice  and  fairness  as  well  as  his 
legal  ability. 

The  northern  democrat  Simmons  loves  to  praise  him, 
as  is  evidenced  by  what  he  says  June  2,  1858,  February 
9,  1859,  and  June  23,  1860. 

Such  unsought  and  spontaneous  commendations  of 
the  great  southern  partisan  by  northern  men  during  the 
heat  of  sectional  agitation  are  extraordinarily  strong 
proofs  of  his  high  character  as  well  as  great  genius. 


244  The  Brothers'  War 

Of  course  the  southern  members  showed  their  appre 
ciation.  Especially  note  what  Bayard  says  March  21, 
1860,  and  what  Butler  says  January  6,  1857.  I  could 
give  many  more  such ;  but  I  shall  only  add  here  how, 
February  14,  1860,  by  reason  of  the  importunate  urgency 
of  some  of  these,  evidently  regarding  him  as  the  special 
southern  champion,  he  is  pushed  into  making  an  able 
rejoinder  to  Hale,  who  had  just  concluded  a  reply  to 
Toombs's  speech  on  the  Invasion  of  States. 

Toombs's  inflexible  keeping  to  what  he  deemed  the 
right  course  parallels  the  absolute  fearlessness  with 
which  Julius  Caesar,  when  a  young  man,  clung  to  the 
wife  whom  the  all-powerful  and  bloody-minded  Sulla 
commanded  him  to  put  away.  The  Sulla  of  America 
are  the  people  in  their  unconscientious  moments,  and 
unpopularity  the  proscription  threatened  which  disquiets 
almost  all  public  men  with  torturing  apprehension. 
And  so  there  is  in  nearly  every  one  some  admixture  of 
the  trimmer.  But  Toombs  never  showed  fear  either 
of  the  people  at  large  or  of  those  of  his  own  State  and 
locality.  He  thus  scourges  juries  assessing  the  value  of 
land  condemned  for  the  government : 

"  It  has  come  to  such  a  pass  that  in  getting  places  for  the 
army,  it  seems  to  be  considered  better  to  be  cheated  by  the 
owners  of  a  site  out  of  a  few  hundred  thousand  for  $10,000 
worth  of  property  rather  than  trust  a  jury."  June  12,  1860. 

When  he  uttered  the  following  he  knew  it  was  ex 
tremely  unpalatable  to  his  section : 

"  The  southern  States  from  their  sparseness  of  population  do 
not  pay  all  their  postal  expenses.  The  whole  mail  service  of 
the  south  ought  to  pay  its  whole  expenses,  and  I  am  ready  to 
put  it  on  that  ground.  ...  I  say  the  point  to  retrench  is  in  the 
south."  February  28,  1859. 


Toombs  245 

The  following  distasteful  lesson  he  read  his  own 
State : 

"  I  know  that  some  of  the  mail  routes  in  my  own  neighbor 
hood  were  taken  away,  and  I  never  was  consulted  about  them, 
and  I  never  thought  it  was  the  duty  or  business  of  the  post 
master-general  to  consult  me.  I  have  not  been  to  his  office 
during  this  winter  in  regard  to  a  single  one ;  and  I  have  been 
very  much  complained  of,  even  in  my  own  county  and  town,  on 
account  of  it.  ...  I  have  a  word  to  say  about  the  Isabel.  She 
touches  at  Savannah ;  and  I  have  received  memorials  from 
people,  letters  from  interested  people,  from  the  Savannah  cham 
ber  of  commerce,  and  others,  saying,  '  By  all  means  keep  up 
the  Isabel;  we  want  it.'  It  is  a  very  popular  thing ;  it  is  a 
good  ship,  and  has  done  its  duty  well.  What  have  I  to  do  but 
follow  my  uniform  line  of  policy,  and  give  them  the  same  rules 
as  everybody  else?  Sixteen  years7  experience  here  —  and  I 
was  here  in  1847,  when  this  steamship  system  commenced  — 
have  satisfied  me  that  congressional  contracts  are  always  unwise, 
and  are  the  fruitful  sources  of  boundless  legislative  corruption. 
Therefore,  I  will  never  sustain  one  under  any  necessity  what 
ever."  May  28,  1860. 

February  22,  1859,  though  Iverson,  his  companion 
from  Georgia,  was  the  other  way,  he  advocated  abolish 
ing  the  mint  at  Dahlonega  in  that  State,  and  the  mint 
also  in  North  Carolina. 

The  last  instance  we  cite  is  his  declaration,  April  25, 
1856,  that  he  had  always  voted  against  a  claim  of  the 
daughter  of  Governor  Irvin  of  Georgia. 

And  to  this  proud  independence  he  was  without  spot 
of  corruption.  This  was  never  questioned  but  once. 
May  13,  1858,  he  was  taunted  for  having  supported  the 
Galphin  claim.  When  at  last  he  sees  that  the  charge  is 
seriously  urged,  in  a  becoming  glow  he  demands  an  ex 
planation.  A  disclaimer  of  reflection  upon  his  charac 
ter  being  made,  he  gives  a  detailed  account  of  the  claim, 


246  The  Brothers'  War 

his  steady  support  of  it,  and  a  complete  justification  of 
George  W.  Crawford  in  the  affair.  At  its  close,  Ham 
mond  of  South  Carolina,  who  was  familiar  with  all  the 
details,  bestowed  upon  it  his  unqualified  voucher.  The 
lofty  spirit  and  just  indignation  informing  this  statement 
of  Toombs  from  beginning  to  end  distinguish  it  as  that 
of  one  who  has  kept  out  of  dark  places  and  walked  so 
purely  in  the  light  that  accusation  is  far  more  of  a  sur 
prise  than  insult.1 

He  never  showed  any  symptom  of  the  presidential 
fever,  which,  to  say  nothing  of  its  many  other  victims, 
enfeebled  each  one  of  the  great  trio,  —  Clay,  Calhoun, 
and  Webster.  Fully  content  with  his  place  in  the  sen 
ate,  he  did  not  look  elsewhere.  Taking  popularity  at 
its  exact  worth ;  candid  and  frank  to  the  extreme ;  con 
tented  in  the  course  dictated  by  his  judgment  and  con 
science  though  opposed  by  his  people  or  party  and  his 
own  private  interest;  in  no  bargains  with  men  nor 
smirching  connections  with  women,  doing  nothing  in 
secret  which,  if  published,  would  bring  a  blush ;  elevated 
above  the  amiable  weaknesses  of  unwise  benevolence, 
ever  championing  with  all  his  powers  the  righteous 
cause  of  the  weak  and  unpopular,  —  as  exampled  in  his 
maintaining  the  claims  of  certain  persons  in  Louisiana 
to  the  Houmas  land  against  the  formidable  opposition 
of  the  two  senators  from  that  State,  in  his  extraordi 
narily  eloquent  appeal  for  the  naval  officers  retired  with 
out  a  hearing,  in  his  heroic  endeavor  to  have  his  party 
seat  the  republican  Harlan ;  incorruptible  and  really 
consistent  forever  and  always,  —  when  he  is  scrutinized 
as  a  public  man  his  character  rises  into  a  grandeur  of 

1  Globe,  35th  Cong.,  ist  Sess.,  Appendix,  360  (I  am  thus  particular  in 
giving  this  reference,  from  a  sense  of  justice  to  the  memory  of  George 
W.  Crawford,  which  is  now  and  then  ignorantly  aspersed  because  of  the 
Galphin  claim). 


Toombs  247 

unselfishness,  firmness  of  high  purpose,  honesty,  and 
power  to  show  and  do  the  right  almost  superhuman.  It 
stands  by  itself  awe-striking  and  imposing. 

But  let  us  particularize  the  special  lesson  of  his  sen 
atorial  career.  We  must  begin  by  suggesting  his 
peculiar  bent.  It  is  clear  that  he  chose  as  his  province 
commerce  and  industry,  with  the  related  themes  of 
political  economy,  finance,  the  currency,  taxation,  the 
tariff,  the  principles  of  exchange  and  distribution,  and 
so  on.1  He  probably  had  the  best  business  insight  of 
all  our  prominent  statesmen,  Calhoun  even  not  ex- 
cepted.  Though  Hamilton  and  Webster  —  the  former 
especially  —  evince  titanic  comprehension  of  financial 
theory,  yet  we  see  from  their  lives  and  poor  money- 
saving  success  that  commercial  and  business  affairs  were 
not  to  them  both  practice  and  theory  as  they  were  to 
Toombs.  Of  all  his  peers  he  was  most  at  home  in  the 
ways  and  principles  which  dictate  proper  legislation  as 
to  trade  and  business.  To  judge  by  his  words,  uttered 
year  in  and  year  out,  nobody  else  ever  saw  more  clearly 
that  there  ought  to  be  no  tariff,  improvement,  job,  or 
any  other  pets  of  government.  The  latter  should  not 
foster  such  a  class,  yearly  increasing  in  number,  as  it 
always  will,  living  idly  and  luxuriously  upon  the  public 
income,  that  is,  upon  the  labor  and  property  of  others. 
This  class  supplants  the  vigorous  products  of  natural 
selection  by  pampered  fatlings  of  bounty,  always  raising 
their  demands  for  support,  and  ever  more  and  more 
clamorously  calling  for  the  suppression  of  all  self-sup 
porting  competition  at  home  and  abroad.  With  the 

1  See  his  argument,  May  25,  1858,  for  putting  duties  on  the  home  valua 
tion  of  imports ;  note  also  how  familiar  he  is  with  trade,  the  motive  of 
smuggling,  the  relation  of  exchange ;  also  what  he  says  of  the  tariff  of 
1857,  Globe,  35th  Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  466,  467,  470.  For  his  mastery 
of  trade  and  commerce,  see  what  he  says  June  9,  1858,  especially  pp. 
2832-2834. 


248  The  Brothers'  War 

moral  hardihood  of  Shakspeare,  who  shrinks  not  from 
rudely  shocking  our  feelings  by  making  Henry  V  dis 
card  his  old  boon  companion  Falstaff,  Toombs  never 
wearied  of  proclaiming  the  unpopular  truth  that  the 
government  ought  not  to  be  the  helper,  guardian, 
patron,  protector,  guarantor,  surety,  almoner,  of  any  of 
its  citizens.  Ponder  these  stout-hearted  and  golden  words 
of  his,  although  the  evil  represented  therein  is  now  estab 
lished  and  magnified  into  dimensions  far  beyond  what 
he  could  conceive  when  they  were  said  —  an  evil,  to 
suppress  which  let  us  hope  all  patriots  will  soon  unite : 

"  Whenever  the  system  shall  be  firmly  established  that  the 
States  are  to  enter  into  a  miserable  scramble  for  the  most 
money  for  their  local  appropriations,  and  that  senator  is  to  be 
regarded  the  ablest  representative  of  his  State  who  can  get  for 
it  the  largest  slice  of  the  treasury,  from  that  day  public  honor 
and  property  are  gone,  and  all  the  States  are  disgraced  and  de 
graded."  February  27,  1857. 

He  is  always  preaching  against  the  heinous  abuse  of 
diverting  government  from  impartially  guarding  the 
whole  community  and  making  it  profit  only  a  few.  His 
text  is  never  far-fetched.  He  finds  it  in  the  proposed 
legislation  of  the  day,  which  it  is  his  duty  to  consider 
in  his  place.  He  cares  not  that  he  makes  no  present 
effect.  Just  before  Bell's  bill  for  improving  the  Cum 
berland  river  was  passed,  he  said  of  it  and  its  compan 
ions  :  "  These  bills  are  passing  sub  silentio,  and  I  suppose 
attempt  to  resist  is  wholly  useless.  I  wish  it  understood 
that  I  do  not  assent  to  their  passage.  I  am  opposed  to 
all  of  them."  February  24,  1855. 

He  sees  that  the  appropriations  for  harbors  and 
rivers,  lighthouses,  private  claims,  pensions,  etc.,  are 
almost  as  baneful  as  was  the  distribution  of  corn  to 
the  Roman  populace,  and  yet  the  people  everywhere 


Toombs  249 

are  eager  for  the  corrupting  gifts.  Against  his  party, 
against  many  of  his  section,  he  fights  alone  and  single- 
handed,  reminding  of  Horatius  keeping  the  bridge 
against  the  Etruscan  host.  Though  always  outvoted, 
he  behaves  with  spirit  and  dignity.  Either  he,  or  some 
one  of  the  faithful  few  who  act  with  him  in  the  slim 
minority,  always  have  the  yeas  and  nays  recorded.  His 
grand  purpose  was  to  appeal  to  the  American  people 
upon  an  issue  involving  the  article  of  his  creed  which  he 
had  held  up  with  so  much  puissance  and  fidelity  in  days 
of  evil  report.  These  words  contain  the  motto  of  the 
long  contest  which  occupied  all  of  his  non-sectional 
career  in  the  senate : 

"  I  think  every  one  of  these  bills  should  be  considered. 
I  do  not  wish  to  have  them  considered  in  such  a  manner  as 
improperly  to  occupy  the  time  of  the  senate.  I  desire  to 
spread  before  the  country  reasonable  information.  That  is  the 
only  purpose  we  can  have  now ;  because  the  combination  is 
sufficient  to  carry  everything  that  the  committee  report.  But 
there  is  a  day  of  reckoning  to  come ;  and  I  trust  that  those  who 
support  this  system  will  be  called  to  judgment." 

"  I  desire  the  truth  to  go  to  the  honest  people  all  over  the 
country.  Let  the  taxpayers  look  at  this  matter ;  let  the  jobbers 
beware.  '  To  your  tents,  O  Israel ! '  ;  July  29,  1856. 

The  sectional  agitation,  mounting  higher  and  higher, 
as  Toombs  said  often,  blinded  the  people  to  this  great 
subject.  Secession  came,  and  his  State  —  to  him  the 
only  sovereign  —  called  the  solitary  combatant  away 
from  the  ground  that  ought  to  be  kept  forever  in  loving 
memory  for  his  long,  desperate,  thrice-valiant  stand. 
And  the  world  should  also  remember  that  the  clauses 
of  the  constitution  of  the  Confederate  States,  "  prohibit 
ing  bounties,  extra  allowances,  and  internal  improve 
ments,"  came  from  him.1 

1  Stephens,  War  between  the  States,  vol.  ii.  338. 


250  The  Brothers'  War 

The  struggle  that  wins  our  deliverance  from  the 
monopolists  now  causing  us  to  go  hungry,  cold,  and 
unshod  is  yet  to  be.  I  cannot  say  when  ;  but  I  know  it 
will  come  soon,  and  that  the  people  will  conquer.  As 
in  that  day  Calhoun's  monetary  doctrine  will  be  brought 
out  of  its  obscurity  to  add  new  lustre  to  his  fame,  as  I 
believe,  so  I  believe  also  that  the  name  of  Robert 
Toombs  will  become  an  object  of  affectionate  rever 
ence  to  all  his  countrymen,  and  the  weighty  and  elo 
quent  sentences  in  which  he  sought  to  shield  general 
industry  from  drones  and  rivals  favored  by  government, 
and  in  which  he  advocated  that  the  public  burdens  be 
reduced  to  the  minimum,  and  then  apportioned  justly,  — 
these  stirring  words  will  be  quoted  everywhere  to  re 
ceive  at  last  their  due  audience  and  favor.  And  when 
no  branch  of  our  government  either  robs  or  gives  to  its 
citizens,  Toombs's  never-remitted,  brave,  unselfish,  and 
gigantic  endeavor  to  bring  on  this  millennium  ought  to 
be  put  by  Americans  in  their  Sunday-school  books. 
When  we  who  fought  the  brothers'  war  completely 
forget  and  forgive,  as  we  soon  will,  it  will  then  be 
understood  how  much  the  sectional  agitation  impeded 
him,  and  that  when  he  was  caught  away  from  the  senate 
by  the  whirlwind  of  secession  he  was  only  fifty  years 
old,  and  of  such  constitutional  vigor  that  he  had  the 
guaranty  of  at  least  a  quarter  of  a  century  more  of  un- 
diminished  activity.  A  fond  imagination  will  inquire: 
Suppose  the  energy  spent  upon  the  Kansas  discussion ; 
the  protection  of  slavery  in  the  Territories;  in  the  great 
speech  of  January  24,  1860,  on  the  Invasion  of  States, 
and  in  that  of  January  7,  1861,  justifying  secession,  his 
supreme  effort,  as  most  of  his  admirers  claim,  could 
have  been  saved  for  themes  of  Pan-American  concern ; 
and  suppose  him  remaining  in  the  senate,  eschewing  all 
other  place,  with  increasing  years  loved  the  more  by  his 


Toombs  251 

people  for  his  courageous  fidelity  to  the  right,  age 
assuaging  his  vehemence  and  softening  his  invective, 
ripening  his  judgment  and  bringing  him  charity  and 
wisdom  to  the  full,  —  to  what  a  height  and  glory  he 
would  have  grown ! 

If  there  had  been  no  slavery,  I  verily  believe  that  the 
south  would  have  been  the  leading  and  most  prosperous 
part  of  the  union,  and  that  Toombs  would  have  been 
the  greatest  American.  Stephens  knew  Webster,  Cal- 
houn,  and  Clay.  The  longer  he  lived  the  more  positive 
he  became  in  believing  that  Toombs  was  superior  in 
ability  to  each  one  of  the  three.  I  have  heard  him  say 
often  that  he  had  never  found  anything  to  which  he 
could  compare  the  power  of  Toombs,  discussing  a  great 
theme  extempore,  except  Niagara. 

Turning  back  from  these  unavailing  conjectures,  I 
must  say  a  last  word  as  to  that  part  of  Toombs's  career 
in  the  senate  which  I  have  been  discussing.  Its  exem- 
plariness  is  not  so  much  in  single  great  achievements. 
It  is  his  uniform  attention  to  the  current  duties  of  his 
place.  Whether  the  particular  duty  impending  was  im 
portant  or  trivial,  whether  it  was  popular  or  not,  it  re 
ceived  from  him  at  the  proper  time  whatever  effort  was 
needed  for  doing  it  rightly.  His  performance  averages 
so  high  in  merit  that  I  cannot  find  a  like.  No  plodder 
ever  kept  more  closely  to  the  safe  and  beaten  path.  But 
he  did  far  more  than  plod.  Almost  every  day  for  eight 
years  he  showed  how  genius  can  manifest  itself  fully 
and  fitly  and  find  its  true  activity  in  the  common  round 
of  affairs ;  how  it  can  better,  exalt,  ennoble,  and  beautify 
daily  routine.  I  believe  that  if  you  will  reflect  over  this, 
you  will  at  last  see  that  such  are  the  greatest  of  men, 
and  those  that  the  world  most  needs. 

I  now  take  up  Toombs's  sectional  career.  The  ag 
gressive  defence  of  slavery,  looming  in  sight  as  Calhoun 


252  The  Brothers'  War 

is  within  a  few  months  of  death,  called  for  a  leader  who 
did  not  hug  the  union,  and  whose  eyes  were  shut  to 
everything  but  the  justice  and  sanctity  of  the  southern 
cause.  Calhoun's  last  speech,  that  of  March  4,  1850, 
was  throughout  an  appeal  to  the  north.  In  that  same 
session,  and  some  while  before  that  speech  was  de 
livered,  the  true  apostle  of  secession  begins  the  procla 
mation  of  his  mission,  and  some  time  after  Calhoun's 
death  and  before  the  end  of  the  session  that  portentous 
proclamation  was  complete.  Robert  Toombs  —  then  in 
his  fortieth  year,  and  having  as  yet  attained  but  little 
conspicuousness  in  congress  —  is  the  man  I  mean.  His 
appeal  was  really  to  the  south. 

Just  after  the  new  congress  assembled  in  December, 
1849,  a  caucus  of  the  whigs,  to  which  party  Toombs 
then  belonged,  having  met  to  nominate  a  candidate  for 
speaker  of  the  house,  he  introduced  a  resolution  to  the 
effect  that  congress  ought  not  to  put  any  restriction 
upon  any  State  institution  in  the  Territories,  nor  abolish 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and,  the  resolution 
being  rejected,  Toombs,  Stephens,  and  a  small  number 
of  others  retired  from  the  caucus,  and  they  did  not  act 
any  further  with  their  party  in  the  organization  of  the 
house.  Toombs  and  his  following  declared  their  pur 
pose  to  disregard  former  connections  and  side  with 
whatever  party  accorded  the  south  the  guaranty  de 
manded  by  the  resolution  above  mentioned.  As  these 
southern  whigs,  and  also  fourteen  northern  democrats 
and  whigs,  would  not  support  for  speaker  either  Cobb, 
the  democratic  nominee,  or  Winthrop,  the  whig,  neither 
one  of  the  two  nominees  could  muster  the  majority 
necessary  under  the  rules  for  election.  Toombs's  tactics 
were  like  those  of  the  commons  who  would  not  vote  the 
supplies  until  the  king  granted  their  wishes  in  other 
matters.  At  this  time  all  the  southern  democrats  and 


Toombs  253 

a  majority  of  the  southern  whigs  were  opposed  to  his 
action.  He  was  leading  what  appeared  to  be  a  hopeless 
advance.  This  is  the  beginning. 

The  next  stage  is  when,  after  nine  days  of  balloting 
for  speaker  without  result,  a  resolution  was  introduced 
declaring  Cobb,  who  had  received  a  plurality,  speaker, 
when  Duer  of  New  York  opposing,  said  he  was  willing 
for  the  sake  of  organizing  to  elect  a  whig,  democrat,  or 
free-soiler — only  that  he  could  not  support  a  disunionist. 
This  manifest  reflection  upon  the  whigs  who  had  held 
themselves  aloof  made  Toombs  break  the  silence  he 
had  theretofore  kept. 

He  surprised  everybody —  perhaps  himself — with  an 
impromptu  of  powerful  argument  and  burning  eloquence. 
Note,  in  order  to  compare  it  with  whatever  utterance  of 
Calhoun  you  please,  these  passages : 

"Sir,  I  have  as  much  attachment  to  the  union  of  these  States, 
under  the  constitution  of  our  fathers,  as  any  freeman  ought  to 
have.  I  am  ready  to  concede  and  sacrifice  for  it  whatever  a  just 
and  honorable  man  ought  to  sacrifice.  I  will  do  no  more.  I  have 
not  heeded  the  aspersions  of  those  who  did  not  understand  or 
desired  to  misrepresent  my  conduct  or  opinions.  The  time  has 
come  when  I  shall  not  only  utter  them,  but  make  them  the 
basis  of  my  political  action  here.  I  do  not,  then,  hesitate  to 
avow  before  this  house  and  the  country,  and  in  the  presence  of 
the  living  God,  that  if  by  your  legislation  you  seek  to  drive  us 
from  the  Territories  of  California  and  New  Mexico,  purchased 
by  the  blood  and  treasure  of  the  whole  people,  and  to  abolish 
slavery  in  the  District,  thereby  attempting  to  fix  a  national  deg 
radation  upon  half  of  the  States  of  this  confederacy,  I  am  for  dis 
union;  and  if  my  physical  courage  be  equal  to  the  maintenance 
of  my  convictions  of  right  and  duty,  I  will  devote  all  I  am  and 
all  I  have  on  earth  to  its  consummation." 

"  The  Territories  are  the  common  property  of  the  United 
States.  .  .  .  You  are  their  common  agents;  it  is  your  duty 
while  they  are  in  the  territorial  state  to  remove  all  impediments 


254  The  Brothers'  War 

to  their  free  enjoyment  by  both  sections  ...  the  slaveholder  and 
the  non-slaveholder.  You  have  made  the  strongest  declarations 
that  you  will  not  perform  this  trust ;  that  you  will  appropriate 
to  yourselves  all  the  Territories.  .  .  .  Yet  with  these  declara 
tions  on  your  lips,  when  southern  men  refuse  to  act  with  you  in 
party  caucuses  in  which  you  have  a  controlling  majority — when 
we  ask  the  simplest  guaranty  for  the  future  —  we  are  denounced 
out  of  doors  as  recusants  and  factionists,  and  indoors  we  are 
met  with  the  cry  of  '  Union,  union  ! ' " 

"  Give  me  securities  that  the  power  of  the  organization  which 
you  seek  will  not  be  used  to  the  injury  of  my  constituents,  then 
you  have  my  co-operation ;  but  not  till  then.  .  .  .  Refuse  them, 
and,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned,  '  let  discord  reign  forever/  " 

I  must  emphasize  the  effect  of  this  speech  made 
December  13,  1849, — nearly  three  months  before  that  of 
Calhoun  last  mentioned, —  and  which  goes  great  lengths 
beyond  anything  ever  said  by  Calhoun.  The  Globe 
mentions  that  the  speaker  was  loudly  applauded  several 
times.  Stephens,  who  was  present,  says  "  it  received 
rounds  of  applause  from  the  floors  and  the  galleries," 
and  we  can  well  believe  his  assertion  that  it  "  produced 
a  profound  sensation  in  the  house  and  in  the  country."  * 
Another  eye-witness,  Milliard  of  Alabama,  a  southern 
whig  who  was  not  in  sympathy  with  his  refusal  to  act 
with  his  party,  relates  with  rapturous  reminiscence  the 
full-orbed  splendor  with  which  Toombs  unexpectedly 
rose  upon  the  house  at  this  time.  He  tells :  "  A  storm 
of  applause  greeted  this  speech.  Mr.  Toombs  had  left 
his  desk  and  taken  his  stand  in  the  main  aisle  and  the 
southern  members  crowded  about  him."2 

For  completeness  and  height,  and  for  sudden  sur 
prise,  this  speech  exceeds  all  impromptus  on  record. 
To  appreciate  it  you  must  recognize  it  as  surely  fore- 

1  War  between  the  States,  vol.  ii.  186. 

2  Address  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  Georgia,  March  9,  1886. 


Toombs  255 

running  the  future  uprising  of  southerners  as  one  man 
in  what  they  deemed  the  holiest  of  causes.  When  you  do 
this  you  can  adapt  to  it  Webster's  words : 

"  True  eloquence  .  .  .  does  not  consist  in  speech.  ...  It 
must  exist  in  the  man,  in  the  subject,  and  in  the  occasion.  .  .  . 
It  comes  .  .  .  like  ...  the  bursting  forth  of  volcanic  fires,  with 
spontaneous  original,  native  force.  .  .  .  Then  patriotism  is 
eloquent,  then  self-devotion  is  eloquent.  .  .  .  This,  this  is  elo 
quence  ;  or  rather  it  is  something  greater  and  higher  than  all 
eloquence — it  is  action,  noble,  sublime,  godlike  action." 

The  remaining  facts  of  this  remarkable  session,  which 
show  that  Toombs  and  not  Calhoun  was  the  apostle  of 
secession,  can  now  be  told  very  briefly. 

December  14,  1849,  debate  in  the  house  was  pro 
hibited  by  resolution.  On  the  22d  the  whigs  and  demo 
crats,  in  order  to  organize  without  agreeing  to  the 
demands  of  Toombs,  joined  in  a  resolution  that  the 
person  receiving  the  largest  vote  on  a  certain  ballot,  if 
it  should  be  a  majority  of  a  quorum,  should  be  speaker. 
This  was  a  palpable  violation  of  the  rules,  but  perhaps 
authorized  by  the  great  emergency.  When  the  resolu 
tion  was  presented,  Toombs,  having  resolved  to  prevent 
any  organization  until  he  had  secured  the  guaranty  he 
was  standing  for,  in  defiance  of  the  prohibition  of  debate, 
made  a  demonstration  of  his  surpassing  endowment,  as 
compared  with  all  other  orators,  to  outmob  a  hostile 
mob  and  scourge  them  into  respectful  audience.  He 
adroitly  led  Staunton,  introducing  the  resolution,  to  yield 
the  floor.  Why  should  he  want  the  floor?  The  house 
had  forbidden  any  discussion,  and  especially  were  nine- 
tenths  of  them  deaf  to  him,  deeming  him  the  cause 
of  their  failure  to  organize.  Announcing  his  purpose 
of  discussion,  he  was  called  to  order.  Then  a  point  of 
order  was  raised,  which  the  clerk  tried  to  put.  The  yeas 


256  The  Brothers'  War 

and  nays  being  demanded,  the  clerk  began  to  call  the 
roll.  There  was  turmoil  and  din,  but  Toombs  held  on, 
denying  the  right  of  anybody  to  interrupt  him,  support 
ing  his  attack  on  the  resolution  by  the  constitution,  the 
act  of  1789,  and  the  high  authority  of  John  Q.  Adams, 
challenging  the  right  of  the  clerk  calling  the  names,  and 
indignantly  inquiring  of  the  house  how  they  could  so 
permit  an  intruder  and  an  interloper  in  nowise  connected 
with  them  to  interrupt  their  proceedings.  At  the  last 
he  forced  the  house  into  quiet,  and  completed  the  argu 
ment  he  had  risen  to  make.  You  will  not  understand 
this  marvellous  achievement  if  you  deem  it,  as  many  do, 
to  have  been  prompted  by  the  pride  of  ostentation  and 
the  rage  of  turbulence.  Toombs  was  thinking  only  of 
securing  the  rights  of  his  people.  He  was  as  earnest  in 
this  cause  as  ever  Webster  was  for  the  union.  And  des 
tiny,  providence, —  not  himself  nor  other  men,  —  was  in 
this  juncture  revealing  him  to  the  south  as  her  leader. 

He  now  begins  to  be  conscious  of  his  coming  leader 
ship,  and  to  feel  that  he  is  an  authority  and  entitled  to 
pronounce  ex  cathedra  upon  the  question  of  southern 
equality  in  the  disposition  of  the  Territories.  Con 
sequently,  February  27,  1850,  he  made  a  long  speech 
on  the  subject  of  the  admission  of  California — one  far 
more  elaborate  and  finished  than  his  average  efforts. 
Especially  to  be  noted  is  its  ending  with  the  famous 
words  of  Troup,  "  When  the  argument  is  exhausted,  we 
will  stand  by  our  arms." 

One  other  exploit  of  Toombs  during  this  session  must 
be  told.  It  crowned  him  as  the  leader  of  the  south. 

Excitement  had  become  intense.  The  extreme  north 
ern  partisans  for  bringing  in  California  were  challenged 
to  answer  if  they  ever  would  vote  to  admit  a  slave  State, 
and  they  declined  to  say  that  they  would.  Thereupon 
came  from  Toombs  an  outburst  which  is  perhaps  the 


Toombs  257 

finest  example  of  his  miraculous  extempore  declamation 
which  has  survived.  He  did  not  consume  the  five  min 
utes  to  which  he  was  limited.  We  append  the  conclu 
sion,  which  is  a  little  more  than  a  third  of  the  whole : 

"  We  do  not  oppose  California  on  account  of  the  anti-slavery 
clause  in  her  constitution.  It  was  her  right  to  exclude  slavery, 
and  I  am  not  even  prepared  to  -say  she  acted  unwisely  in  its 
exercise  —  that  is  her  business;  but  I  stand  upon  the  princi 
ple  that  the  south  has  the  right  to  an  equal  participation  in  the 
Territories  of  the  United  States.  I  claim  for  her  the  right  to 
enter  them  all  with  her  property  and  securely  to  enjoy  it.  She 
will  divide  with  you,  if  you  wish  it ;  but  the  right  to  enter  all, 
or  divide,  I  shall  never  surrender.  In  my  judgment,  this  right, 
involving  as  it  does  political  equality,  is  worth  a  thousand  such 
unions  as  we  have,  even  if  they  each  were  a  thousand  times 
more  valuable  than  this.  I  speak  not  for  others,  but  for  myself. 
Deprive  us  of  this  right  and  appropriate  this  common  property 
to  yourselves,  it  is  then  your  government,  not  mine.  Then  I  am 
its  enemy,  and  I  will,  if  I  can,  bring  my  children  and  my  con 
stituents  to  the  altar  of  liberty,  and,  like  Hamilcar,  swear  them 
to  eternal  hostility  to  your  foul  domination.  Give  us  our  just 
rights,  and  we  are  ready,  as  ever  heretofore,  to  stand  by  the  I 
union,  every  part  of  it,  and  its  every  interest.  Refuse  it,  and 
for  one  I  shall  strike  for  independence." 

Stephens,  ever  a  most  accurate  and  trustworthy  wit 
ness,  says  that  of  all  speeches  which  he  heard  during  his 
congressional  course,  which  covered  the  years  1843—1859, 
this  produced  the  greatest  sensation  in  the  house.1  Its 
effect  outside  —  that  is,  in  the  southern  public  —  was 
widespread,  deep,  and  permanent.  The  comparison 
with  which  it  closed  had  been,  I  believe,  used  before; 
but  what  of  that?  It  exactly  voiced  the  revolutionary 
sentiment  which,  as  his  deliverances  on  the  I3th  of  De 
cember  before  showed,  was  beginning  to  come  into 

1  War  between  the  States,  vol.  ii.  217. 


258  The  Brothers'  War 

consciousness  in  his  section.  It  gave  new  impetus  to 
the  circulation  of  the  other  speeches.  The  young  men 
of  Georgia,  as  I  know,  and  perhaps  those  of  other  south 
ern  States,  read  them  over  and  over,  reciting  with 
passionate  emphasis  the  most  stirring  passages.  Es 
pecially  did  they  delight  to  declaim  the  peroration  of 
the  Hamilcar  speech,  as  that  of  June  15,  1850,  has 
always  been  called  in  Georgia.  To  the  stump  orators, 
the  last  mentioned  and  that  of  December  13  became 
examples  which  they  emulated  only  to  find  in  their  de 
spairing  admiration  that  parallel  was  impossible.  And 
even  the  retiring,  quiet,  and  elderly  people  who  care  for 
nothing  but  their  daily  business  caught  the  fire.  Not 
long  ago,  one  who  is  now  old,  who  was  entering  middle 
age  in  1850,  and  who  has  been  a  stanch  union  man  all 
his  life,  told  me  that  he  could  not  keep  from  reading 
these  speeches  over  and  over,  and  whenever  he  read 
one  of  them,  it  made  him  for  the  time  a  disunionist. 

The  part  played  by  Toombs  in  the  congressional 
session  of  1849-50  seems  to  me  one  of  the  most  wonder 
ful  exploits  in  all  parliamentary  annals.  Since  slavery  is 
gone,  and  I  can  at  last  understand  that  it  was  all  blessing 
to  the  African  and  all  curse  to  us,  my  joy  is  inexpress 
ible.  But  I  must  ever  hold  that  its  defence  was  one  of 
the  noblest  efforts  of  the  best  of  people.  It  will  soon 
be  understood  by  the  whole  world,  and  especially  by 
our  brothers  of  the  north.  They  will  acknowledge  that 
neither  Greek  nor  Scot  nor  Swiss  were  more  manly  or 
heroic  than  southerners,  and  the  supporters  of  the  Lost 
Cause  will  be  crowned  with  such  lustre  and  glory  as 
magnify  Hannibal  succumbing  to  Rome,  or  Demosthe 
nes  unvailingly  stirring  up  his  country  against  Macedon. 
It  will  forever  bring  me  ecstatic  emotion  to  recall  the 
many,  many  places  where  my  fellows  suffered  or  fell  at 
my  side  without  a  murmur.  Our  victories  at  the  open- 


Toombs  259 

ing  of  the  brothers'  war ;  then  the  drawn  battles ;  then 
the  defeats ;  and  the  round  of  sickening  disasters  at  the 
end, —  all  these  come  thronging  back,  and  I  can  never 
be  other  than  proud  of  the  prowess  and  endurance  of 
our  out-numbered  armies,  the  energy  and  untamable 
spirit  of  our  people,  and  the  devotion  of  our  blessed 
women  to  the  weal  of  our  soldiers.  I  often  look  back 
over  the  track  of  what  I  have  called  the  aggressive 
defence  of  slavery.  Though  it  was  disguised  under 
various  names,  such  as  the  threat  of  disunion  in  certain 
contingencies  by  the  Georgia  Platform,  just  division  of 
the  public  domain  between  the  sections  called  for  by  all 
parties  in  the  south,  and  finally  the  demand  for  full  pro 
tection  of  slavery  in  the  Territories ;  and  though  it  was 
now  and  then  seemingly  at  rest,  that  movement  from 
the  day  it  set  in  was  in  reality  one  directly  towards 
secession,  and  it  kept  on  as  steadily  as  the  Pontic  sea. 
And  as  I  look  back  at  the  further  edge  of  this  retrospect, 
marking  the  beginning,  towering  above  all  who  took  high 
place  later,  —  even  above  Lee  and  Jackson,  —  ever  comes 
more  plainly  into  view  the  majestic  figure  of  Robert 
Toombs,  revealing  his  unsuspected  power  like  a  thunder 
clap  from  the  sunny  sky,  December  13,  1849,  when  he 
extorts  wild  acclamations  of  applause  from  the  majority 
of  southern  whigs  and  all  of  the  southern  democrats, 
both  unanimous  against  his  stand  for  a  guaranty  of  con 
gressional  non-restriction ;  a  few  days  later  coercing  an 
infuriated  house  trying  to  cry  him  down  into  wondering 
silence  ;  and  through  the  whole  session  upholding  his 
cause  with  such  might  that  the  single  champion  proves 
an  overmatch  for  the  two  parties  striking  hands  against 
him,  and  he  finally  conquers  preaudience  and  dictation 
upon  the  main  southern  theme. 

I  become  more  and  more  confident  that  future  history 
will  find  the  achievement  of  Toombs  in  the  session  of 


260  The  Brothers'  War 

1849-50  to  be  the  exact  point  where  the  drift  towards 
secession,  which  had  before  that  been  only  latent  and 
potential,  becomes  actual,  and  that  here  is  the  dawn 
of  the  Confederate  States.  The  more  I  gaze  at  it  the 
plainer  and  redder  that  dawn  becomes. 

We  need  not  tell  the  rest  of  Toombs's  sectional  career 
with  much  detail.  The  all-important  part  of  it  histori 
cally  is  its  beginning,  and  how  he  vaulted  into  the  lead 
of  the  aggressive  defence  of  the  south,  which  I  hope  I 
have  adequately  told.  From  this  time  he  showed  in 
all  that  he  did  the  quality  which  Mommsen  glorifies 
in  Julius  Csesar,  —  ready  insight  into  the  possible  and  im 
possible.  Much  discontent  manifested  itself  in  Georgia, 
and  also  in  Mississippi,  Alabama,  arid  South  Carolina, 
against  the  compromise  measures,  and  especially  against 
the  admission  of  California  with  its  constitution  prohibit 
ing  slavery.  A  convention  being  called  in  Georgia  to 
consider  what  should  be  done,  there  was  thorough 
discussion.  An  overwhelming  majority  of  delegates 
opposing  any  resistance  was  elected.  To  this  result 
Tbombs  contributed  more  than  any  one  else,  and  he 
really  shaped  the  platform  finally  promulgated  by  the 
convention.  This  —  the  Georgia  Platform  of  1850,  as 
we  always  called  it  —  is  a  most  important  document  to 
the  historian ;  for  it  was  the  weighed  and  solemn  dec 
laration  of  some  nine-tenths  of  the  people  of  a  pivotal 
southern  State. 

The  southern-rights  men,  as  a  small  but  noisy  part  of 
the  southern  people  then  called  themselves,  had  mis 
taken  Toombs's  last-mentioned  speeches  in  congress  as 
declarations  for  immediate  disunion  in  case  California 
was  admitted  under  her  free  constitution;  and  when 
he  supported  the  compromise  measures,  and  also  the 
Georgia  Platform,  they  hotly  denounced  him  as  a 
turncoat.  In  their  blind  fury  they  could  not  see,  as 


Toombs  261 

everybody  else  did,  that  vehement  and  fervent  language, 
proper  to  awaken  one's  people  from  perilous  apathy, 
may  really  be  at  the  time  understatement,  and  that, 
after  the  people  have  awakened,  to  seek  in  that  same 
language  the  counsel  of  right  action  would  be  the  ex 
treme  of  immoderate  folly.  The  more  you  meditate  it 
the  more  plainly  you  discern  that  his  leadership  was 
masterly.  From  the  first  to  the  last  his  appeal  was  to 
the  middle  class  of  property  owners  —  then  so  numerous 
that  it  was  practically  the  whole  of  southern  society. 
His  object  at  the  first,  as  he  declared,  was  to  make  with 
this  class  the  protection  of  their  fundamental  property 
interest  the  prominent  question  of  national  politics. 
And  the  end  showed  that  he  not  only  took,  but  that 
he  kept,  the  right  road.  The  Georgia  Platform  became 
the  bible  of  every  political  following  in  the  State.  The 
next  year,  1851,  Toombs,  still  a  whig,  supported  Howell 
Cobb,  a  democrat,  for  governor  against  McDonald,  one 
of  the  most  popular  men  of  the  State,  the  southern- 
rights  candidate.  Toombs's  side,  which  won  by  a  large 
majority,  was  called  the  union  party.  You  will  not 
be  deceived  by  this  if  you  keep  in  mind  that  Cobb  was 
elected  on  the  Georgia  Platform,  which  had  pledged  the 
people  of  the  State  to  resist,  even  to  disunion,  certain 
named  encroachments  upon  slavery  which  providence 
had  already  ordered  to  be  made. 

In  1848  Yancey  had  aroused  the  people  of  Alabama 
into  demanding  that  the  United  States  protect  slavery 
in  the  Territories,  and  he  advocated  secession  in  1850. 
But  in  both  these  things  he  was  premature.  As  com 
pared  with  Toombs  he  uncompromisingly  stood  for  every 
tittle  of  what  he  believed  were  the  rights  of  the  south. 
Toombs  was  a  far  more  practical  and  able  opportunist. 
His  falling  back  upon  the  Georgia  Platform  from  a  much 
more  advanced  position,  as  I  have  just  told,  is  an  instance. 


262  The  Brothers'  War 

I  want  to  give  others.  He  always  declared  in  private 
conversation  after  the  war  that  the  democratic  party 
was  ripened  and  committed  by  Douglas  and  his  co-work 
ers  to  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  compromise  while  he 
was  kept  away  from  Washington  by  necessary  attention 
to  the  interests  of  a  widowed  sister,  otherwise,  with  his 
commanding  position  at  the  time,  he  would  have  crushed 
the  scheme  at  its  first  proposal.  When  he  returned  to 
his  public  duties,  to  his  amazement  he  found  that  every 
prominent  member  of  the  party  was  irrevocably  for  the 
repeal,  and  he  could  do  nothing  but  embrace  the  inevi 
table.  Then  he  would  say  substantially,  "  Had  it  not 
been  for  that  administratorship  which  I  could  not  avoid 
taking,  we  would  all  still  be  working  our  slaves  in  peace 
and  comfort.  That  Missouri  settlement  was  not  right, 
but  we  had  agreed  to  it;  and  with  me  a  wrong  settlement, 
when  I  agree  to  it,  is  just  as  binding  as  a  righteous  one." 

When  others  are  urging  that  the  United  States  ought 
to  protect  slavery  in  the  Territories,  the  record  does  not 
show  that  he  is  interested  at  first ;  although  when  at  last 
the  question  is  forced  into  debate  he  makes  by  far  the 
strongest  speech  of  all  in  championship  of  the  Davis 
resolutions.  I  believe  the  current  sucked  him  in. 

Just  after  Lincoln's  election  —  an  event  which  in 
fluenced  nearly  all  of  even  the  most  moderate  elderly 
people  of  my  acquaintance  to  declare  at  once  for  a 
southern  confederacy  —  he  proposed  that  Stephens  join 
with  him  in  an  address  to  the  people  of  Georgia,  coun 
selling  that  no  immediate  secessionist  nor  non-resistance 
man  be  elected  to  the  convention ; l  and  later  he  pro 
fessed  willingness  to  accept  the  Crittenden  compromise. 

The  truth  is  that  the  ablest  leaders,  as  we  call  them, 
do  not  lead  —  they  are  led.  If  they  should  become 
non-representative,  their  followers  would  go  elsewhere. 
1  Waddell,  Life  of  Linton  Stephens,  237. 


Toombs  263 

And  those  of  these  leaders  whose  influence  is  the  most 
potent  and  permanent  are  the  conservative  and  mod 
erate.  Toombs  was  never  really  ahead  in  the  southern 
movement  except  when  for  a  brief  while  in  the  session 
of  1849-50  he  planted  the  standard  far  to  the  front 
and  called  his  people  forward.  Afterwards  there  were 
always  others  who  appeared  to  be  fighting  much  in 
advance  of  him. 

He  companioned  his  people  as  they  steadily  devel 
oped  their  readiness  for  the  dread  action  commanded 
by  the  Georgia  Platform  if  the  north  should  say  not 
another  inch  of  extension  for  slavery,  and  no  extra 
dition  of  fugitive  slaves.  Of  course  he  matured  in 
feeling  for  secession  far  beyond  what  appeared  to  be  his 
ripeness  in  1850.  With  all  his  conservatism,  he  was  of 
that  stuff  out  of  which  the  most  earnest  and  biased  par 
tisans  are  made.  There  are  many  who  can  admit 
nothing  against  those  they  love,  and  a  still  larger 
number  who  hug  their  country  with  a  religious  ac 
ceptance  of  everything  in  it  as  the  best  in  the  world. 
To  him  and  his  people,  the  south,  under  the  mighty 
influence  of  the  nationalization  we  have  explained, 
had  long  been  unconsciously  displacing  the  union  in 
their  hearts.  As  one  may  learn  from  his  Tremont  Tem 
ple  lecture,  he  saw  and  magnified  all  of  the  good  in  the 
society  to  which  he  belonged,  and  was  as  blind  to  the 
bad  as  a  mother  is  to  the  faults  of  her  children.  He 
was  often  heard  to  run  through  an  enumeration  of  south 
ern  superiorities.  The  courage  and  valor  of  the  men, 
the  virtue  and  loveliness  of  the  women,  the  purity  of 
the  administration  of  justice  and  of  the  performance  of 
all  public  duties ;  especially  did  he  love  to  say  that  the 
honesty  of  his  section  was  so  well  established  that  its  few 
venal  congressmen  were  like  a  woman  of  easy  virtue  in  a 
good  family,  whom  the  reputation  of  the  latter  keeps 


264  The  Brothers'  War 

from  solicitation;  and  he  would  fall  to  praising  the 
kingliness  of  cotton,  the  beneficence  of  slavery  both  tc 
master  and  slave,  the  delicacy  of  our  yam,  the  excelling 
flavor  given  by  crab  grass  to  beef  and  butter,  the  juice 
of  the  peach  of  Middle  Georgia,  sweeter  than  nectar, 
the  incomparable  melon,  and  cap  the  climax  by  assert 
ing  persimmon  beer  to  be  more  acceptable  to  the  palate 
of  a  connoisseur  than  any  champagne.  And  in  the  days 
just  preceding  the  great  outbreak  he  had  become  more 
intense  in  his  deep  love  for  his  State  and  section.  The 
raid  of  John  Brown  into  Virginia  was,  I  think,  the  evenl 
which  turned  the  scale  with  him,  and  made  him  feel  thai 
secession  was  near.  Taking  the  occasion  offered  by 
Douglas's  resolution,  directing  the  judiciary  committee 
to  report  a  bill  for  the  protection  of  each  State  agains' 
invasion  by  the  authorities  and  inhabitants  of  othei 
States,  January  24,  1860,  he  delivered  in  the  senate 
a  speech  which  we  must  notice.  It  is  common  ir 
Georgia  to  adopt  the  eulogy  of  Stephens  and  pronounce 
the  speech  of  January  7,  1861,  justifying  secession,  a< 
Toombs's  greatest  effort.  But  I  hesitate,  unable  tc 
decide  which  is  superior.  He  states  his  proposition: 
thus : 

"  I  charge,  first,  that  this  organization  of  the  abolitionists  ha; 
annulled  and  made  of  no  effect  a  fundamental  principle  of  the 
federal  constitution  in  many  States,  and  has  endeavored  and  ii 
endeavoring  to  accomplish  the  same  result  in  all  non-slavehold 
ing  States. 

Secondly,  I  charge  them  with  openly  attempting  to  depriv< 
the  people  of  the  slaveholding  States  of  their  equal  enjoymen 
of,  and  equal  rights  in,,  the  common  Territories  of  the  Unitec 
States,  as  expounded  by  the  supreme  court,  and  of  seeking  to  ge 
the  control  of  the  federal  government,  with  the  intent  to  enabl< 
themselves  to  accomplish  this  result  by  the  overthrow  of  th< 
federal  judiciary. 


Toombs  265 

Thirdly,  I  charge  that  large  numbers  of  persons  belonging 
to  this  organization  are  daily  committing  offences  against  the 
people  and  property  of  the  southern  States  which,  by  the  law 
of  nations,  are  good  and  sufficient  causes  of  war  even  among 
independent  States ;  and  governors  and  legislatures  of  States, 
elected  by  them,  have  repeatedly  committed  similar  acts." 

The  facts  are  reviewed  closely  and  summed  up  with 
extraordinary  force ;  the  subject  is  treated  as  carefully 
under  the  law  of  nations  as  under  the  constitution;  the 
quotation  from  Mill's  "  Moral  Sentiments,"  and  that  from 
Thucydides,  narrating  the  successful  effort  of  Pericles  in 
persuading  the  Athenians  to  resort  to  war  rather  than 
concede  the  right  of  the  Megareans  to  receive  their  re 
volted  slaves,  are  appositely  used ;  the  conviction  that 
there  is  no  longer  safety  for  the  south  in  the  union 
speaks  out  in  every  line;  and,  with  the  exception  of 
a  few  overheated  passages,  the  entire  speech  is  from  the 
loftiest  height  of  the  statesman  who  bids  his  people  arm 
for  self-preservation.  Just  preceding  the  peroration 
there  are  paragraphs  describing  nervously  and  graphi 
cally  the  great  resources  of  the  south  and  her  rapid 
development  from  feeble  beginnings,  one  of  which  es 
pecially  emphasizes  the  past  and  present  of  Virginia, 
adding  at  the  last 

"  One  blast  upon  her  bugle  horn 
Were  worth  a  million  men." 

Next  before  this  are  words  which  invoke  the  northern 
democracy,  but  they  seem  out  of  place  and  foreign.  He 
abruptly  ends  his  appeal  to  the  national  classes  who 
have  his  respect  by  saying,  "  The  union  of  all  these  ele 
ments  may  yet  secure  to  our  country  peace  and  safety. 
But  if  this  cannot  be  done,  peace  and  safety  are  incom 
patible  with  this  union.  Yet  there  is  safety  and  a  glorious 
future  for  the  south.  She  knows  that  liberty  in  its  last 


266  The  Brothers'  War 

analysis  is  but  the  blood  of  the  brave.  She  is  able  to  pay 
the  price  and  win  the  blessing.  Is  she  ready?  " 

The  last  three  sentences  are  the  southern  correlative 
of  Webster's  soaring  when  he  magnified  the  union  in  his 
reply  to  Hayne.  They  were  repeated  over  and  over  by 
everybody  with  a  wild  acceptance  utterly  without  parallel 
in  my  knowledge,  and  after  the  election  of  Lincoln  became 
the  war  cry  of  Georgia. 

The  position  taken  in  the  very  conclusion  of  this 
truly  Periclean  speech  is  especially  to  be  attended  to 
here.  It  is  that  in  the  event  of  the  success  of  the  re 
publican  party  in  the  next  presidential  election  the 
people  of  his  State  must  redeem  their  pledge  made  nine 
years  before  in  the  Georgia  Platform. 

From  this  time  on  he  is  facile  primus  of  southern 
champions.  Note  his  long  and  elaborate  reply  to  Doo- 
little,  February  27,  1860;  the  discussion  with  Wade, 
March  7,  1860,  —  both  relating  to  his  speech  last 
noticed  above;  and  his  very  able  argument,  May  21, 
1860,  on  the  duty  of  protecting  slavery  in  the  Territories. 

During  the  presidential  campaign  of  1860  the  Douglas 
men  and  the  Americans  in  Georgia  charged  the  sup 
porters  of  Breckinridge  with  plotting  disunion  that 
would  bring  on  war.  The  charge  was  generally  denied. 
The  truth  is,  hardly  anybody  was  aware  that  the  awful 
crisis  was  near.  Those  who  really  expected  secession 
believed  with  Howell  Cobb  and  his  brother  Thomas, 
and  with  Thomas  W.  Thomas,  that  it  would  be  peace 
able,  and  perhaps  they  were  about  a  tenth;  the  rest 
followed  Stephens,  believing  that  the  American  people 
on  each  side  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  would,  when 
it  was  demanded,  rise  up  in  resistless  co-operation  and 
make  safe  both  southern  institutions  and  the  union. 
Generally  Stephens  was  far  superior  to  Toombs  in 
forecast  and  discernment  of  the  sentiment  of  the  masses. 


Toombs  267 

But  while  the  former  was  too  wise  to  consider  even  for 
one  moment  the  probabilities  of  peaceable  secession, 
he  had  a  most  un-American  conviction  that  nothing 
good  was  ever  gained  by  war,  and  he  so  loved  peace 
and  the  union  that  he  could  not  believe  his  people 
would  secede.  In  his  great  sympathies  Toombs  was 
here  far  more  clear-sighted.  While  he  was  the  only 
speaker  in  this  presidential  campaign  that  was  disre 
spectful  to  the  union,  often  calling  it  in  derision  "  the 
gullorious,"  and  he  gave  no  promise  that  withdrawal 
from  the  union  would  be  peaceful,  and  so  appeared  to 
be  to  himself  and  alone,  he  was  really  the  only  one 
riding  the  waves  of  the  undercurrent  rising  every  day 
nearer  the  surface,  and  soon  to  sweep  all  of  us  onward 
upon  its  raging  waters.  The  other  speakers  discussed 
the  rival  platforms,  but  the  nearer  election  day  ap 
proached  the  more  potently  he  was  preparing  the 
people  and  himself  for  secession,  though  unawares  to 
both.  And  when  Lincoln  was  elected,  —  the  man  who 
had  solemnly  published  his  belief  that  this  government 
could  not  endure  permanently  part  slave  and  part  free, 
—  an  occurrence  which  aroused  the  south  throughout 
as  the  firing  upon  Fort  Sumter  afterwards  aroused  the 
north,  Toombs  drank  in  every  accession  to  the  emotion 
of  his  people,  and  towered  more  largely  before  them 
every  day  as  the  soul  of  the  revolution  now  palpable  in 
its  coming  to  all.  When  secession  was  debated  before 
the  Georgia  legislature,  after  enumerating  what  he 
declared  to  be  the  wrongs  of  the  south,  he  said,  "  I  ask 
you  to  give  me  the  sword ;  for  if  you  do  not  give  it  to 
me,  as  God  lives,  I  will  take  it  myself."  In  his  immortal 
eulogy  of  the  union  the  next  night,  Stephens  quoted 
these  words,  and  Toombs,  who  was  present,  answered 
in  a  voice  of  thunder,  "  I  will."  The  house  rocked 
to  and  fro  with  frenzied  applause.  Long  afterwards 


268  The  Brothers'  War 

Stephens  told  me  that  this  outburst  was  the  first  reveal 
ing  sign  to  him  that  his  people  were  rushing  to  war. 
He  lost  his  breath  while  gasping  out  the  awful  word, 
and  there  was  terror  in  his  looks  as  if  the  direful  ghost 
had  risen  again.  Some  ardent  secessionists  professed 
themselves  ready  to  drink  all  the  blood  that  would  be 
spilled,  but  Toombs,  in  his  warlike  nature,  was  already 
revelling  in  the  joy  of  fighting  for  his  people  in  this 
most  sacred  of  causes.  In  one  of  his  speeches  he 
eulogized  beforehand  those  who  were  to  fall  in  defence 
of  the  south,  giving  them  the  requiem  of  sleeping  for 
ever  where 

"  Glory  guards  with  solemn  round 
The  bivouac  of  the  dead." 

I  did  not  hear  this,  but  a  friend  told  me  that  the 
speaker's  electric  recitative  made  the  hackneyed  words 
forever  new  and  fresh  to  him. 

I  must  go  faster.  January  7,  1861,  Toombs  made  in 
the  United  States  senate  his  famous  defence  of  seces 
sion.  He  presented  in  behalf  of  the  south  these  de 
mands  expressed  in  writing: 

1.  Any  person  to  be  permitted  to  settle  in  any  Terri 
tory,  with  any  of  his  property,  including  slaves,  and  be 
protected  in  his  property  till  such  Territory  is  admitted 
as  a  State  on  an  equality  with  the  other  States,  with  or 
without  slavery  as  its  people  may  determine. 

2.  Property  in  slaves  to  receive  everywhere  from  the 
United   States  government  the  same  protection  which 
under  the  constitution  it  can  give  any  other  property, 
it   being   reserved  to   each  State  to  deal  with   slavery 
within  its  limits  as  it  pleases. 

3.  Extradition  of  persons  committing  crimes  against 
slave  property,  as  commanded  by  the  constitution. 

4.  Extradition  of  fugitive  slaves  as  commanded  by 
the  same  constitution. 


Toombs  269 

5.  Congress  to  pass  efficient  laws  punishing  all  per 
sons  aiding  or  abetting  invasion  of  a  State  or  insurrec 
tion  therein,  or  committing  any  other  act  against  the 
law  of  nations  that  tends  to  disturb  the  tranquillity  of 
the  people  or  government  of  the  State. 

It  is  plainly  evident  to  the  unprejudiced  that  he  had 
the  warrant  of  the  constitution,  the  law  of  nations,  of 
the  practice  and  professions  of  the  great  body  of  even 
northern  citizens  ever  since  the  adoption  of  the  consti 
tution,  for  every  one  of  these  demands.  It  is  also  as 
plainly  evident  that  every  one  was  vital  to  each  southern 
community,  founded  as  it  was  from  basement  to  roof, 
upon  property  in  slaves.  The  justice  of  his  demands 
could  not  be  denied  without  repudiating  the  constitu 
tion,  the  law  of  nations,  and  the  solemn  compacts  of  the 
fathers,  their  children  and  children's  children.  And 
providence  had  really  made  each  one  of  these  astound 
ing  repudiations,  in  her  purpose  to  extirpate  slavery  as 
the  only  menace  to  the  American  union,  even  if  the 
people  so  dear  to  Toombs  must  be  all  cast  out  of  their 
prosperity  and  comfort  into  beggary.  But  when  a  man 
is  fighting  for  his  loved  ones,  —  especially  if  he  is  fight 
ing  for  his  country, —  and  he  has  the  valor  of  Toombs, 
his  not-to-be-shaken  conviction  is  that  providence  is  on 
his  side,  and  the  nearer  great  disaster  approaches,  the 
stouter  becomes  his  heart.  Toombs's  support  of  his 
demands,  and  his  defence  of  what  he  knew  the  south 
would  do  if  they  were  refused,  are  the  most  earnest 
words  he  ever  spoke.  Note  these  paragraphs : 

"  You  cannot  intimidate  my  constituents  by  talking  to  them 
about  treason.  They  are  ready  to  fight  for  the  right  with  the 
rope  around  their  necks." 

"  You  not  only  want  to  break  down  our  constitutional  rights  ; 
you  not  only  want  to  upturn  our  social  system  ;  your  people 
not  only  steal  our  slaves  and  make  them  freemen  to  vote  against 


270  The  Brothers*  War 

*  us ;  but  you  seek  to  bring  an  inferior  race  into  a  condition  of 
^•^Quajity,  socially  and  politically,  with  our  own  people^  The 
question  of  slavery  moves  not  the  people  of  Georgia  one  half 
as  much  as  the  fact  that  you  insult  their  rights  as  a  com 
munity.  You  abolitionists  are  right  when  you  say  that  there 
are  thousands  and  ten  thousands  of  men  in  Georgia,  and  all 
over  the  south,  who  do  not  own  slaves.  A  very  large  portion 
of  the  people  of  Georgia  own  none  of  them.  In  the  mountains 
there  are  comparatively  few  of  them  ;  but  no  part  of  our  people 
are  more  loyal  to  their  race  and  country  than  our  brave  moun 
tain  population ;  and  every  flash  of  the  electric  wires  brings  me 
cheering  news  from  our  mountain  tops  and  pur  valleys  that 
these  sons  of  Georgia  are  excelled  by  none  of  their  countrymen 
in  loyalty  to  the  rights,  the  honor,  and  the  glory  of  the  com 
monwealth.  They  say,  and  well  say,  this  is  our  question;  we 
want  no  negro  equality,  no  negro  citizenship;  we  want  no  mon 
grel  race  to  degrade  our  own ;  and  as  one  man  they  would 
meet  you  upon  the  border,  with  the  sword  in  one  hand  and  the 
torch  in  the  other.  We  will  tell  you  when  we  choose  to  abolish 
this  thing ;  it  must  be  done  under  our  direction,  and  according 
to  our  will;  our  own,  our  native  land  shall  determine  this  ques 
tion,  and  not  the  abolitionists  of  the  north.  That  is  the  spirit 
of  our  freemen." 

Here  is  the  grand  conclusion : 

"This  man,  Brown,  and  his  accomplices,  had  sympathizers. 
Who  were  they  ?  One  who  was,  according  to  his  public  speeches, 
his  defender  and  laudator,  is  governor  of  Massachusetts.  Other 
officials  of  that  State  applauded  Brown's  heroism,  magnified  his 
courage,  and  no  doubt  lamented  his  ill  success.  Throughout 
the  whole  north,  public  meetings,  immense  gatherings,  trium 
phal  processions,  the  honors  of  the  hero  and  conqueror,  were 
awarded  to  this  incendiary  and  assassin.  They  did  not  con 
demn  the  traitor ;  think  you  they  abhorred  the  treason  ? 

Yet  .  .  .  when  a  distinguished  senator  from  a  non-slavehold- 
ing  State  proposed  to  punish  such  attempts  at  invasion  and 
insurrection,  Lincoln  and  his  party  say  before  the  world,  '  Here 
is  a  sedition  law/  To  carry  out  the  constitution,  to  protect 


Toombs  271 

States  from  invasion  and  suppress  insurrection  therein,  to  com 
ply  with  the  laws  of  the  United  States  is  a  '  sedition  law,'  and 
the  chief  of  this  party  treats  it  with  contempt;  yet,  under  the 
very  same  clause  of  the  constitution  which  warranted  this  bill,  you 
derive  your  power  to  punish  offences  against  the  law  of  nations. 
Under  this  warrant  you  have  tried  and  punished  our  citizens 
for  meditating  the  invasion  of  foreign  States ;  you  have  stopped 
illegal  expeditions ;  you  have  denounced  our  citizens  engaged 
therein  as  pirates  and  commended  them  to  the  bloody  ven 
geance  of  a  merciless  enemy.  Under  this  principle  alone  you 
protect  our  weaker  neighbors  of  Cuba,  Honduras,  and  Nica 
ragua.  By  this  alone  are  we  empowered  and  bound  to  prevent 
our  people  from  conspiring  together,  giving  aid,  money,  or  arms 
to  fit  out  expeditions  against  a  foreign  nation.  Foreign  nations 
get  the  benefit  of  this  protection ;  but  we  are  worse  off  in  the 
union  than  if  we  were  out  of  it.  Out  of  it  we  should  have  the 
protection  of  the  neutrality  laws.  Now  you  can  come  among 
us :  raids  may  be  made ;  you  may  put  the  incendiary  torch  to 
our  dwellings,  as  you  did  last  summer  for  hundreds  of  miles  on 
the  frontier  of  Texas ;  you  may  do  what  John  Brown  did,  and 
when  the  miscreants  escape  to  your  States  you  will  not  punish 
them,  you  will  not  deliver  them  up.  Therefore,  we  stand  de 
fenceless.  We  must  cut  loose  from  the  accursed  '  body  of  this 
death,'  even  to  get  the  benefit  of  the  law  of  nations. 

You  will  not  regard  confederate  obligations;  you  will  not 
regard  constitutional  obligations ;  you  will  not  regard  your  oaths. 
What,  then,  am  I  to  do  ?  Am  I  a  freeman  ?  Is  my  State  a  free 
State  ?  We  are  freemen.  We  have  rights  ;  I  have  stated  them. 
We  have  wrongs ;  I  have  recounted  them.  I  have  demonstrated 
that  the  party  now  coming  into  power  has  declared  us  outlaws, 
and  is  determined  to  exclude  thousands  of  millions  of  our  prop 
erty  from  the  common  Territories,  that  it  has  declared  us 
under  the  ban  of  the  union,  and  out  of  the  protection  of  the 
law  of  the  United  States  everywhere.  They  have  refused  to 
protect  us  by  the  federal  power  from  invasion  and  insurrection, 
and  the  constitution  denies  to  us  in  the  union  the  right  either 
to  raise  fleets  or  armies  for  our  defence.  All  these  charges  I 
have  proved  by  the  record ;  and  I  put  them  before  the  civilized 


272  The  Brothers'  War 

world  and  demand  the  judgment  of  to-day,  of  to-morrow,  of 
distant  ages  and  of  heaven  itself,  upon  the  justice  of  these 
causes.  I  am  content,  whatever  may  be  the  event,  to  peril  all 
in  so  noble,  so  holy  a  cause.  We  have  appealed  time  and 
time  again  for  these  constitutional  rights.  You  have  refused 
them.  We  appeal  again.  Restore  us  these  rights  as  we  had 
them,  as  your  court  adjudges  them  to  be  just  as  our  people 
have  said  they  are ;  redress  these  flagrant  wrongs,  seen  of  all 
men,  and  it  will  restore  fraternity  and  peace  and  unity  to  all  of 
us.  Refuse  them,  and  what,  then  ?  We  shall  ask  you,  '  Let  us 
depart  in  peace.'  Refuse  that,  and  you  present  us  war.  We 
accept  it ;  and  inscribing  upon  our  banners  the  glorious  words 
/  '  Liberty  and  Equality,'  we  will  trust  to  the  blood  of  the  brave 
and  the  God  of  battles  for  security  and  tranquillity." 

No  new  nation  about  to  be  launched  upon  a  sea  of 
blood  was  ever  heralded  with  words  that  were  above 
these  in  appeal  to  the  conscience  and  strongest  affec 
tions  of  humanity.  They  are  not  outvied  by  those  of 
/  Patrick  Henry  reported  by  Wirt,  or  those  of  John 
Adams  reported  by  Webster,  which  the  world  will  ever 
treasure  as  all  gold.  O  that  he  had  corrected  them ! 
He  could  not  use  the  file,  as  we  have  already  said. 

Soon  after  making  the  speech  he  went  away  from  the 
senate  without  taking  leave.  March  14,  1861,  that  body 
passed  a  resolution  reciting  that  the  seats  before  occu 
pied  by  Brown,  Davis,  Mallory,  Clay,  Toombs,  and 
Benjamin  had  become  vacant,  and  directing  that  the 
secretary  omit  their  names  from  the  roll. 

It  was  clear  from  his  incomparable  and  faultless  lead 
ership  of  the  active  defence  of  the  south,  and  his  unique 
ability  in  affairs,  that  he  was  the  choice  of  the  directors 
of  southern  nationalization  for  president  of  the  Confed 
erate  States;  but  these  were  overcome  by  stronger 
spirits,  and  Davis  was  made  president.  I  have  al 
ways  believed  that  Toombs  regarded  this  as  the  great 


Toombs  273 

miscarriage  of  his  life.  He  could  not  continue  his 
connection  with  the  unbusinesslike  conduct  of  the  ad 
ministration,  and  he  retired  from  his  secretaryship  of 
state.  Read  what  his  superiors  say  of  him  at  Sharps- 
burg,  and  what  Dick  Taylor  with  admiration  tells  of 
the  help  he  afterwards  got  from  him  in  a  dark  hour, 
as  specimens  of  his  gallantry  and  efficiency  in  the 
service.  But  his  was  not  the  nature  of  Epaminondas,  to 
doff  his  natural  supereminence  and  sweep  the  streets. 
Pegasus  did  not  show  more  unsuited  to  the  plow  than 
he  did  to  his  inferior  station  in  this  stage  of  the  great 
conflict  which  was  his  meat  and  drink. 

The  collapse  came,  flight  from  America,  return  at 
last  to  his  stricken  people,  and  disability  for  the  rest  of 
his  life.  Though  he  had  something  of  even  a  great 
career  at  the  bar,  and  in  State  politics,  his  longing  for 
the  old  south  and  discontent  with  the  new  increased, 
slowly  at  first,  then  faster  and  faster.  As  infirmity  from 
age  came  on  apace,  and  his  wife  whom  he  had  always 
made  his  good  angel  went  to  heaven,  every  day  he 
became  more  lonely.  He  had  survived  his  country. 
Such  love  as  his  for  that  loves  but  once  and  always. 
The  sacrifices  that  he  had  made  for  it  became  his  treas 
ures.  He  hugged  his  disability  as  his  most  precious 
jewel.  Our  gallant  Gordon  was  not  more  proud  of  the 
scars  on  his  face.  Not  long  before  his  mind  and  mem 
ory  were  failing,  speaking  of  the  past,  he  said  with  the 
utmost  firmness :  "  I  regret  nothing  but  the  dead  and 
the  failure. 

'  Better  to  have  struck  and  lost, 
Than  never  to  have  struck  at  all.'  " 

What  a  fall !  Greater  by  far  than  Lucifer's.  Lucifer 
was  rightfully  cast  out  because  of  heinous  offence.  But 
Toombs  was  cashiered  because  he  had  been  the  best, 
ablest,  and  most  faithful  servant  of  his  people,  whose 

18 


274  The  Brothers'  War 

dearest  rights  were  in  jeopardy.  According  to  our 
merely  human  view  it  is  the  way  of  fiends  to  reward 
such  supremacy  in  virtue  and  achievement  with  hell 
pains.  If  we  cannot  hope  confidently,  may  not  we  sur 
vivors  at  least  send  up  sincere  prayers  that  the  Lord 
will  yet  give  this  Job  of  the  old  south  twice  as  much  of 
fair  fame  as  he  had  before. 

If  the  defeated  in  the  wars  between  England  and 
Scotland  and  in  the  English  civil  wars ;  and  if  Cromwell 
and  the  regicides  who  set  up  a  government  that  had  to 
fall,  —  if  all  these  have  found  respectful  and  fully  appre 
ciative  mention  at  last,  why  shall  not  Calhoun  and 
Toombs  look  to  have  the  same  after  some  years  be 
passed?  Trusting  that  such  will  come,  I  close  this 
sketch  by  suggesting  where  Toombs  will,  I  think,  be 
niched  in  American  history. 

He  is  often  spoken  of  as  the  southern  correspondence 
to  Wendell  Phillips.  There  was  nothing  whatever  in 
!  common  between  the  two  except  extraordinary  fluency 
of  zealous  speech.  Early  in  life,  Phillips,  almost  a  mere 
boy,  broke  with  Mrs.  Grundy  by  advocating  abolition 
before  his  neighbors  were  ripe  for  it.  While  Toombs 
cared  nothing  for  Mrs.  Grundy,  he  always  so  comported 
himself  that  he  was  her  great  authority.  He  was  a  very 
able  lawyer,  who  had  made  a  considerable  fortune  by 
practice,  and  a  thorough  statesman,  when  fate  confided 
the  southern  lead  to  him ;  and  while  Phillips  was  reck 
less  and  rash,  Toombs  never,  never  essayed  the  impos 
sible  with  his  people.  The  more  you  balance  him  and 
Phillips  against  each  other,  the  more  unlike  you  will  find 
them.  Prof.  William  Garrott  Brown  is  quite  correct  in 
pairing  Phillips  and  Yancey. 

There  is  a  northern  character  to  whom  Toombs  as  a 
southern  opposite  corresponds  in  so  many  important 
particulars  that  it  surprises  me  it  has  not  been  pro- 


Toombs  275 

claimed.     As  Webster  was  the  special  apostle  of  the 
preservation  of  the  union,   Toombs  was   the  same  of 
secession.     Their  missions  were  parallel  in  that  each  one 
was  the  foremost  champion  of  his  nationality,  Webster 
of  the  Pan-American,  as  we  may  call  it ;   and  Toombs 
of  the  southern.     All  through  the  brothers'  war  their 
phrases  were  on  the  lips  and  fired  the  hearts  of  each 
host,  those  of  Webster  impelling  to  fight  for  the  union, 
those  of  Toombs  for  the  southern  confederacy.     Each 
was  probably  the  ablest  lawyer  of  his  day.      Each  was 
surely  the  ablest  debater  to  be    found.     Each  was  of 
sublime  courage  in  defying  what  he  thought  to  be  un 
just  commands  of  his  constituents.     And  the  last  point 
which  I  think  of  is  that  each  was    of  most   complete  „ 
and  perfect   physical  development,   and   was   the   most 
majestic  presence  of  his  day.     The  busiest  men  in  the 
streets  of  all  sorts  and  ranks  always  found  time  to  look  - 
upon   either   Webster   or   Toombs  as    he   passed,   and 
admire.     I  never  saw  Webster.     But  I  believe  that  from 
his  pictures,  from  long  study  of  his  best  speeches,  and 
from  what  I  have  greedily  read  and  heard  of  him  in  a 
fond  lifelong  contemplation,  I  have  an  almost  perfect 
figure  of  him  before  my  mind's  eye.     Toombs  from  my 
boyhood  I  saw  often.     I  will  describe  him  as  I  observed 
him   at   the    hustings  just   before   the  war.     His   face, 
almost  as  large  as  a  shield,  but  yet  not  out  of  propor 
tion,  was  in  continual  play  from  the  sweetest  smile   of 
approval  to  the  scowl  of  condemnation,  darkening  all 
around  like  a   rising  thundercloud.     His  flowing  locks 
tossed  to  and  fro  over  his  massive  brow  like  a  lion's 
mane,  as  was   universally  said.     In  every  attitude  and 
gesture  there  was  a  spontaneous  and  lofty  grace  —  not 
the  grace  of  the  dancing-master,  but  the  ease  and  repose 
of  native  nobility.     His  face  was  not  Greek,  but  in  his 
total  he  looked  the  extreme  of  classic  symmetry  and  the 


276  The  Brothers'  War 

utmost  of  power  of  mind,  will,  and  act.  Princely,  royal, 
kingly,  even  godlike,  were  the  words  spontaneously 
uttered  with  which  men  tried  in  vain  to  tell  what  they 
saw  in  him.  He  and  just  one  other  were  the  only  men 
of  my  observation  whose  greatness,  without  their  saying 
a  word,  spoke  plainly  even  to  strangers.  That  other 
man  was  Lee.  I  noted,  when  we  were  near  Chambers- 
burg  in  Pennsylvania  those  three  or  four  days  before 
the  great  battle,  that,  while  the  natives  would  curiously 
inquire  the  names  of  others  of  our  generals  as  they  rode 
by,  every  one  instantaneously  recognized  Lee  as  soon  as 
he  came  near.  This  publication  of  her  chosen  in  their 
mere  outside  which  destiny  makes  is  not  to  be  slighted 
nor  underprized.  And  so  remember  that  Webster 
}  looked  the  greatest  of  all  men  of  the  north,  and  Toombs 
the  greatest  of  all  men  of  the  south. 

To  my  mind  I  give  each  unsurpassable  praise  and 
glory  when  I  call  Webster  the  northern  Toombs  and 
Toombs  the  southern  Webster. 

I  add  a  note  by  way  of  epilogue.  I  observe  with 
pain  that  the  obloquy  against  Toombs  in  the  north 
seems  to  increase,  while  that  against  him  in  the  rising 
generation  of  the  south  —  who  do  not  know  him  at  all 
—  is  surely  increasing.  It  is,  however,  a  growing  con 
solation  to  me  to  note  that  every  charge,  currently  made 
against  him  north  or  south,  is  founded  either  upon  com- 
plete  mistake  of  fact  or  the  grossest  misunderstanding 
of  his  character  and  career.  It  is  a  duty  of  mine  not 
only  to  him  as  my  dead  and  revered  friend,  but  a  high 
duty  to  my  country,  to  set  him  in  his  right  place  in  the 
galaxy  of  America's  best  and  greatest  I  never  knew  a 
man  of  kinder  or  more  benevolent  heart;  nor  one  who 
had  more  horror  of  fraud,  unfairness,  and  trick;  nor  one 
whiter  in  all  money  transactions ;  nor  one  whose  longing 


Toombs  277 

and  zeal  for  the  welfare  of  neighbors  and  country  were 
greater ;  nor  one  who  showed  in  his  whole  life  more  re 
gard  for  the  rights  and  also  the  innocent  wishes  of  every 
body.  The  model  men  of  the  church,  such  as  Dr.  Mell 
and  Bishop  George  Pierce,  loved  him  with  a  fond  and 
cherishing  love.  The  humblest  and  plainest  men  were 
attracted  to  him,  and  they  gave  him  sincere  adulation. 
Many  of  my  contemporaries  remember  rough  old  Tom 
Alexander,  the  railroad  contractor.  I  saw  him  one  day 
in  a  lively  talk  with  Toombs.  As  he  passed  my  seat 
while  leaving  the  car  he  whispered  to  me  :  "  Bob  Toombs  ! 
his  brain  is  as  big  as  a  barrel  and  his  heart  is  as  big  as  a 
hogshead."  From  1867  until  1881  I  was  often  engaged 
in  the  same  cases  with  Toombs,  either  as  associate  or 
opposing  counsel,  and  I  saw  a  great  deal  of  him.  It 
falls  far  short  to  say  that  he  was  the  most  entertaining/- 
man  I  ever  knew.  He  was  just  as  wise  in  judgment  as 
he  was  original  and  striking  in  speech.  I  am  sure  that 
his  superiority  as  a  lawyer  towered  higher  in  the  con 
sultation  room  just  before  the  trial  than  even  in  his  able 
court  conduct.  And  he  led  just  as  wisely  and  pre 
eminently  in  the  politics  of  that  day,  when  it  was  vital  to 
the  civilization  of  the  south  to  nullify  the  fifteenth  amend 
ment.  Georgia  would  indeed  be  an  ungrateful  republic 
should  she  forget  his  part  in  the  constitution  of  1877. 
That  was  deliverance  from  the  unspeakable  disgrace  of 
nine  years  —  a  constitution  made  by  ignorant  negroes, 
also  criminals  who,  to  use  the  words  of  Ben  Hill, 
sprang  at  one  bound  from  State  prisons  into  the  con 
stitutional  convention,  and  some  native  deserters  of  the 
white  race  —  the  constitution  so  made  kept  riveted 
around  our  necks  by  the  bayonet.  The  good  work 
would  have  remained  undone  for  many  years  had  not 
Toombs  advanced  $20,000  to  keep  the  convention, 
which  had  exhausted  its  appropriation,  in  session  long 


278  The  Brothers'  War 

enough  to  finish  our  own  constitution.  The  railroad 
commission  established  by  that  instrument  is  really  his 
doing.  This  post-bellum  political  career  of  his,  in  which 
he  restored  his  stricken  State  to  her  autonomy  and  self- 
respect,  has  not  yet  won  its  full  appreciation. 

If  Toombs  could  but  be  delineated  to  the  life  in  his 
extempore  action,  advice,  and  phrase  he  would  soon 
attain  a  lofty  station  in  world  literature.  It  mattered 
not  what  he  was  talking  about,  —  an  affair  of  business  or 
of  other  importance,  communicating  information,  telling 
an  experience,  complimenting  a  girl,  disporting  himself 
in  the  maddest  merriment,  as  he  often  did  after  some 
great  accomplishment,  —  his  language  flashed  all  the 
while  with  a  planet-like  brilliancy,  and  the  matter  was  of 
a  piece.  Those  of  us  who  hang  over  Martial,  how  we 
learn  to  admire  his  perpetual  freshness  and  variety  !  But 
when  we  compare  him  with  Catullus,  his  master,  we  note 
that  while  his  epigram  is  always  splendid,  the  language 
is  commonplace  beside  that  of  the  other.1  Toombs  was 
even  more  than  Martial  in  exhaustless  productivity  and 
unhackneyed  point,  and  his  words  always  reflected,  like 
those  of  Catullus,  the  hues  of  Paradise.  Perhaps  a 
reader  exclaims,  "  As  I  do  not  know  Martial  and  Catul 
lus  your  comparison  is  nothing  to  me."  Well,  I  tell  him 
that  I  have  read  Shakspeare  from  lid  to  lid  more  times 
than  I  can  say,  and  that  I  have  long  been  close  friends 
with  every  one  of  his  characters,  all  the  way  from  Lear, 
Othello,  Hamlet,  and  Macbeth  at  the  top,  down  to  his 
immortal  clowns  at  the  bottom.  Surely  with  this  ex 
perience  it  can  be  said  of  me,  "  The  man  has  seen  some 
majesty."  I  have  often  tried,  and  that  with  the  help  of 

1  The  rare  perfection  of  Catullus's  spontaneous  poetic  expression 
is  something  like  adequately  represented  in  two  quotations  made  by 
Baehrens,  one  from  Niebuhr,  and  the  other  from  Macaulay,  especially  in 
the  former.  Catulli  Veronensis,  Liber  II.  42. 


Toombs  279 

a  few  intimates  almost  as  deeply  read  in  Shakspeare  as 
myself,  to  find  in  the  dainty  plays  an  equal  to  Toombs 
throwing  away  everywhere  around  him  with  infinite 
prodigality  gems  of  unpremeditated  wisdom  and  phrase. 
Samuel  Barnett,  Linton  Stephens,  Henry  Andrews  and 
my  cousin,  his  wife,  Samuel  Lumpkin,  and  S.  H.  Harde- 
man,  all  of  whom  knew  him  well,  were  among  these. 
The  end  of  every  effort  would  be  our  agreement  that 
Shakspeare  himself  could  hardly  have  made  an  ade 
quately  faithful  representation  of  Toombs. 

The  mental  torture  of  the  last  three  or  four  years  of 
his  life  I  must  touch  upon  again.  The  most  active  anti- 
slavery  partisan  and  most  scarred  soldier  of  the  union 
will  compassionate  if  he  but  contemplate.  I  met  him 
only  now  and  then.  As  I  read  his  feelings  —  one  eye 
quenched  by  cataract  and  the  other  failing  fast ;  his  con 
temporaries  of  the  bar  and  political  arena  dead ;  the 
wife  whom  he  loved  better  than  he  did  himself  sinking 
under  a  disease  gradually  destroying  her  mind ;  ever 
harrowed  with  the  thought  that  his  country  was  no 
more,  and  that  he  was  a  foreigner  and  exile  in  the  spot 
which  he  had  always  called  home,  —  though  I  was  full 
of  increasing  joy  over  the  benefit  of  emancipation  to  my 
people  and  gladness  at  the  promise  of  reunited  America, 
my  tranquillity  would  take  flight  whenever  he  came  into 
my  mind.  He  was  that  spectacle  of  a  good  man  in  a 
hopeless  struggle  against  fate  that  moves  enemies  to 
pity.  To  me  his  last  state  was  more  tragic  and  pathetic 
than  that  of  CEdipus. 

Of  course  his  powers  were  declining.  I  know  that  he 
would  never  have  drank  too  much  if  there  had  been  no 
sectional  agitation,  secession,  war,  nor  reconstruction. 
His  appetite  was  never  that  insane  thirst,  as  I  have 
heard  him  call  it,  which  impels  one  into  delirium  tre- 
mens.  He  always  disappointed  his  adversaries  at  the 


280  The  Brothers'  War 

bar  calculating  that  drink  would  disable  him  at  an  im 
portant  part  of  the  conduct.  Others  as  well  as  myself 
can  testify  to  this.  Near  the  end  he  deliberately  chose 
to  drain  full  cups  of  purpose  to  sweeten  bitter  memories. 
With  moderation  he  had  more  assurance  of  longevity 
than  any  other  of  his  generation;  and  he  would,  I 
verily  believe,  have  been  green  and  flourishing  in  his 
hundredth  year.  He  lost  his  rare  faculty  of  managing 
money.  It  was  a  shock  of  surprise  to  me  when  the  fire 
in  August,  1883,  disclosed  that  he  had  let  the  insurance 
of  his  interest  in  the  Kimball  house  run  out  shortly  be 
fore.  It  was  a  pitiable  sight  to  see  him  in  his  growing 
blindness  and  wasting  frame  armed  by  his  negro  servant 
along  the  streets  of  Atlanta  in  his  last  visits  to  the  place. 
During  all  this  time  he  was  dying  by  inches. 

But  the  sun  going  down  behind  heavy  clouds  would 
now  and  then  send  forth  rays  of  the  old  glory.  It  was 
in  May,  1883,  during  the  session  of  the  superior  court 
of  Wilkes,  where  I  had  some  of  my  old  business  to 
wind  up,  that  I  was  last  in  his  house.  He  had  made 
invitations  to  dinner  without  keeping  account.  At  the 
hour  his  sitting-room  was  densely  packed.  A  few  of  us 
were  late.  When  we  arrived  many  were  compounding 
their  drinks.  He  hospitably  suggested  to  us  new-comers 
that  there  was  still  some  standing  room  around  the 
sideboard.  In  a  little  while  the  throng  was  treading  the 
well-known  way  to  the  dining-hall,  which  we  overflowed 
so  suddenly  that  his  niece,  whom  Mrs.  Toombs,  then 
keeping  her  room,  had  charged  with  seeing  the  table 
laid,  was  astounded  to  find  she  could  not  seat  all  of  the 
bidden  guests.  Just  as  her  flurry  was  beginning  to  make 
us  uncomfortable  our  host  entered.  In  spite  of  his  in 
firmity  and  purblindness  he  took  in  the  situation  with 
his  wonted  quickness.  He  said  in  a  tone  of  tender  re 
monstrance  to  his  niece,  "  O,  I  do  not  object  to  hav- 


Toombs  281 

ing  more  friends  than  room;  it  is  usually  the  other/ 
way  in  this  world."  And  with  despatch  and  order  he 
had  the  surplus  given  seats  at  side  tables.  My  eyes 
moistened.  I  had  an  unhappy  presentiment  that  this 
was  my  last  observation  of  the  only  man  I  ever  knew 
whose  fine  acts  and  words  never  waited  when  occasion 
called.  I  was  aroused  by  the  whisper  of  a  neighbor, 
"  Can  any  one  else  in  the  world  do  such  a  beautiful  thing 
on  the  spur  of  the  moment?  "  The  admiring  looks  that 
followed  inspired  him,  and  his  talk  seemed  to  have  more 
than  its  old  lustre  and  gleam. 

In  his  final  illness,  when  paralysis  was  slowly  creeping 
up  his  frame,  and  he  had  lost  the  sense  of  place  and 
time,  he  would  now  and  then  start  from  his  stupor  and 
send  across  the  State  a  bolt  from  the  bow  which  no 
other  could  bend.  Somebody  spoke  of  a  late  meeting 
of  "  prohibition  fanatics."  "Do  you  know  what  is  a  fa 
natic?  "he  asked  unexpectedly.  "  No,  "was  replied.  "He 
is  one  of  strong  feelings  and  weak  points,"  Toombs  ex 
plained.  And  overhearing  another  say  that  an  unusually 
prolonged  session  of  the  State  legislature  had  not  yet 
come  to  an  end,  he  exclaimed  with  urgency,  "  Send  for 
Cromwell !  " 

He  died  December  15,  1885,  in  his  seventy-sixth  year. 

If  I  have  told  the  truth  in  this  chapter,  —  and  God 
knows  I  have  tried  my  utmost  to  tell  it,  —  ought  not  my 
brothers  and  sisters  of  each  section  to  lay  aside  their 
angry  prejudices  and  bestow  at  last  upon  the  only  and 
peerless  Toombs  the  love  and  admiration  which  are  the 
due  reward  of  his  virtues,  his  towering  example,  his 
wonder-striking  achievements,  and  his  incomparable 
genius?  May  that  power  which  incessantly  makes  for 
righteousness,  and  which  always  in  the  end  has  charity 
to  conquer  hate,  soon  bring  to  us  who  really  knew  him 
our  dearest  wish ! 


CHAPTER  XII 

HELP  TO   THE   UNION   CAUSE   BY   POWERS   IN  THE 
UNSEEN 

IF  you  are  not  balked  by  adherence,  either  to  the 
rapidly  waning  overpositiveness  of  materialism,  or 
to  the  ferocious  orthodoxy  which  denies  that  there 
has  been  any  providential  interference  in  human  affairs 
since  that  told  of  in  the  bible ;  and  if  you  are  exempt 
from  the  fear  of  being  regarded  as  superstitious  which 
keeps  a  great  number  of  even  the  most  cultivated  people 
forever  in  a  fever  of  incredulity  as  to  every  example  of 
what  they  call  the  supernatural,  you  have  long  since  be 
come  convinced  that  evolution  is  intelligently  guided  by 
some  power  or  powers  in  the  unseen.  I  seem  to  myself 
to  discern  plainly  in  many  important  crises  of  history 
the  palpable  influence  of  what  are  to  me  the  directors 
of  evolution.  Washington,  to  found  our  great  federa 
tion,  and  Lincoln  to  perpetuate  it  —  these  come  at  once 
as  examples.  Now  follow  me  while  I  try  to  show  you 
what  the  directors  did  in  preparation  for  and  in  conduct 
of  the  brothers'  war,  of  purpose  that  the  north  should 
triumph  and  save  the  union.  Of  course  I  am  precluded 
from  all  attempt  to  be  exhaustive.  I  shall  only  glance 
at  a  few  of  the  facts  that  appear  to  me  cardinal  and  most 
important. 

In  the  first  place,  they  deferred  the  war  until  under 
the  effect  of  foreign  immigration  the  population  of  the 
north  greatly  outnumbered  that  of  the  south  and  had 
become  almost  unanimous  against  slavery ;  and  until  the 
south  was  almost  entirely  dependent  upon  her  railroads 


Help  to  Union  Cause  by  Powers  Unseen   283 

and  her  river  and  ocean  commerce.  Had  secession  oc 
curred  because  of  the  excitement  over  the  application 
of  Missouri  for  admission  into  the  union  with  a  slave 
constitution,  there  might  have  been  a  war,  but  it  would 
have  been  short,  the  end  being  that  every  foot  of  the 
public  domain  admitting  of  profitable  slave  culture  would 
have  fallen  to  the  south.  Suppose  a  serious  effort  had 
been  made  in  1833  to  collect  the  revenue  in  South  Caro 
lina,  how  long  would  the  south  have  endured  invasion  of 
the  little  State  and  slaughter  of  its  citizens?  Even  Presi 
dent  Jackson  would  have  soon  forgotten  his  enmity  to 
Calhoun  and  recognized  that  blood  is  thicker  than  water. 
The  time  was  not  then  ripe,  as  the  directors  saw ;  and 
so  they  effected  an  adjustment  of  the  controversy.  It 
did  not  suit  the  directors  to  have  the  war  commence  in 
1850,  for  there  was  at  the  time  no  general  use  of  iron 
clads,  and  the  railroad  system  was  far  from  completion. 
Consider  for  a  moment  the  advantage  to  the  north  of 
having  gunboats  and  the  disadvantage  to  the  south  of 
not  having  them.  Fort  Donelson  really  fell  because 
of  gunboats.  Grant  got  re-enforcements  in  time  to  save 
him  from  disastrous  defeat  at  Shiloh  because  of  the 
command  of  the  river  by  gunboats.  The  gunboats 
caused  the  fall  of  Vicksburg.  And  it  was  the  holding 
of  the  James  from  its  mouth  to  Fort  Darling  by  gun 
boats  which  gave  Grant  such  secure  grip  at  Petersburg 
that  Richmond  had  to  fall  at  last,  and  with  it  the  con 
federacy. 

Now  a  word  as  to  the  southern  railroads.  Next  to 
the  navigable  rivers  they  were  the  lines  of  easiest  pene 
tration  to  invaders.  Remember  how  the  British  in  1898 
advanced  in  Africa  only  as  they  completed  their  railroad 
behind  them.  Of  course  had  the  railroad  been  already 
made  their  advance  would  have  been  along  it.  How 
could  Sherman  have  ever  crossed  the  devastated  tract 


284  The  Brothers'  War 

from  Dalton  to  Atlanta  had  he  been  without  the  raiV- 
road  behind  him?  During  his  retreat  Johnston  kept  the 
invading  army  between  himself  and  the  railroad  without 
which  it  could  not  have  been  subsisted,  and  staid  so  close 
that  Sherman  had  him  constantly  in  view ;  conduct  which 
is  still  lauded  by  some  people  in  the  south  as  masterly 
beyond  compare. 

To  conceive  more  vividly  the  river  and  railroad  situ 
ation  which  I  am  striving  to  explain,  suppose  that  during 
the  Revolutionary  war  the  States  had  been  as  dependent 
as  the  south  afterwards  became  upon  rivers  and  railroads, 
and  the  British  had  and  the  Americans  did  not  have 
iron-clad  gunboats ;  as  matters  now  look,  our  forefathers 
would  have  been  beaten  back  to  the  foot  of  the  throne. 
I  believe  that  the  railroads  alone  would  have  rendered 
their  subjugation  certain. 

So  much  for  the  matchless  judgment  shown  by  the 
directors  in  deciding  as  to  the  time  of  the  war.  I  shall 
now  tell  what  I  have  long  thought  is  most  unmistakably 
their  work  in  conducting  that  war. 

As  soon  as  secession  was  an  accomplished  fact,  they 
deprived  the  better  southern  statesmanship  of  all  guid 
ance  of  the  brothers'  war  now  inevitable  and  about  to 
begin.  In  such  a  war  a  proper  executive  is  of  far  more 
importance  than  good  legislators  and  even  good  gen 
erals.  Toombs  was  the  man  who  stood  forth  head 
and  shoulders  above  all  others  as  the  logical  president 
of  the  southern  confederacy.  But  the  wily  directors 
hypnotized  the  electors  into  believing  that  Davis,  be 
cause  of  his  military  education,  service  in  Mexico,  and 
four  years'  secretaryship  of  war,  was  the  right  man.  It 
is  generally  believed  in  the  south  that  the  considerations 
just  mentioned  turned  the  scale  in  favor  of  Davis.  But 
sometimes  I  think  that  the  true  explanation  is  different. 
Stephens  has  told  how  Toombs  was  got  out  of  the  way. 


Help  to  Union  Cause  by  Powers  Unseen   285 

When  this  narrative1  was  published,  both  Toombs  and 
Davis,  with  many  of  the  partisans  of  each  were  alive, 
and  regard  for  them  may  have  kept  him  silent  as  to  a 
reported  mischance  to  Toombs,  which  provoking  op 
position  —  as  was  whispered  —  from  some  of  those  who 
had  been  among  his  most  earnest  supporters,  decided 
him  to  retire.  A  biographer  writes :  "  There  was  a 
story,  credited  in  some  quarters,  that  Mr.  Toombs's 
convivial  conduct  at  a  dinner  party  in  Montgomery 
estranged  from  him  some  of  the  more  conservative 
delegates,  who  did  not  realize  that  a  man  like  Toombs 
had  versatile  and  reserved  powers,  and  that  Toombs  at 
the  banquet  board  was  another  sort  of  a  man  from 
Toombs  in  a  deliberative  body."2 

Something  like  that  stated  in  the  quotation  just  made 
did  happen,  as  Stephens  was  wont  to  relate  at  Liberty 
Hall  —  the  name  which  he  gave  his  hospitable  home  at 
Crawfordville,  Georgia.  I  was  present  more  than  once 
at  such  times. 

Such  could  have  been  the  work  of  the  directors. 

Georgia,  being  the  pivotal  State  of  the  new  federation, 
was  by  many  conceded  the  presidency.  Besides  Toombs 
she  had  two  other  men,  far  abler  statesmen  than  Davis 
and  then  as  conspicuous  in  the  public  eye  —  A.  H. 
Stephens  and  Howell  Cobb.  The  election  of  either  one 
of  these  would  really  have  been  the  same  almost  as  the 
election  of  Toombs,  for  the  three  were  in  complete  ac 
cord,  and  Toombs  was  the  natural  and  actual  leader.  So 
great  was  their  fealty  to  him  that  neither  one  could  have 
been  induced  to  stand  for  the  place  after  he  had  missed 
it.  The  directors  saw  to  it  that  neither  one  of  the  three 
should  be  president  of  the  Confederate  States. 

Suppose  that  Toombs  —  or  that  either  Stephens  or 

1  War  Between  the  States,  vol.  ii.  329-333. 

2  Pleasant  A.  Stovall,  The  Life  of  Robert  Toombs,  218. 


286  The  Brothers'  War 

Cobb  —  had  been  made  president,  what  a  different  con 
duct  there  would  have  been  of  the  war.  Besides  being 
the  foremost  statesman  of  the  south,  Toombs  was  its 
very  ablest  man  of  affairs,  and  as  far  superior  to  Davis 
in  practical  and  business  talent  as  a  trained  and  ex 
perienced  man  is  to  an  untrained  and  inexperienced 
woman.  Not  intending  to  disparage  the  other  great 
qualifications  of  Toombs,  I  must  emphasize  it  that  of 
all  his  contemporaries  he  alone  evinced  a  clear  under 
standing  of  the  principles  according  to  which  the  con 
federate  currency  could  have  been  better  managed  than 
were  the  greenbacks  by  the  other  side.  A  letter  of 
his  during  the  war  to  Mr.  James  Gardner,  of  Augusta, 
Georgia,  published  at  the  time  in  the  paper  of  which 
the  latter  was  then  editor,  shows  insight  and  grasp  of 
the  subject  equal  to  Ricardo's.  Toombs  as  president 
of  the  confederacy  would  have  had  congress  enact 
proper  currency  measures.  When  he  was  in  place  to 
advise  and  lead,  his  influence  exceeded  by  far  that  of 
any  other  man  that  I  ever  knew. 

But  this,  important  as  it  is,  is  far  from  being  the  most 
important.  He  and  Stephens  were  fully  convinced  at 
the  very  first  of  the  overruling  importance  to  the  con 
federacy  of  these  two  things:  (i)  to  make  full  use  of 
cotton  as  a  resource ;  (2)  to  prevent  a  blockade  of  the 
southern  ports.  I  make  these  extracts  following  from 
a  speech  of  Stephens's  at  Crawfordville,  Georgia,  No 
vember  i,  1862: 

"  What  I  said  at  Sparta,  Georgia,  upon  the  subject  of  cotton, 
many  of  you  have  often  heard  me  say  in  private  conversation, 
and  most  of  you  in  the  public  speech  last  year  to  which  I  have 
alluded.  Cotton,  I  have  maintained,  and  do  maintain,  is  one 
of  the  greatest  elements  of  power,  if  not  the  greatest  at  our 
command,  if  it  were  but  properly  and  efficiently  used,  as  it 
might  have  been,  and  still  might  be.  Samson's  strength  was  in 


Help  to  Union  Cause  by  Powers  Unseen   287 

his  locks.  Our  strength  is  in  our  locks  of  cotton.  I  believed 
from  the  beginning  that  the  enemy  would  inflict  upon  us  more 
serious  injury  by  the  blockade  than  by  all  other  means  com 
bined.  It  was  ...  a  matter  of  the  utmost  .  .  .  importance 
to  have  it  raised.  How  was  it  to  be  done  ?  .  .  .  I  thought  it 
.  .  .  could  be  done  through  the  agency  of  cotton.  ...  I  was 
in  favor,  as  you  know,  of  the  government's  taking  all  the 
cotton  that  would  be  subscribed  for  eight  per  cent  bonds  at  a 
rate  or  price  as  high  as  ten  cents  a  pound.  Two  millions  of 
the  last  year's  crop  might  have  been  counted  upon  as  certain 
on  this  plan.  This,  at  ten  cents,  with  bags  of  the  average 
commercial  weight,  would  have  cost  the  government  one  hun 
dred  millions  of  bonds.  With  this  amount  of  cotton  in  hand 
and  pledged,  any  number,  short  of  fifty,  of  the  best  ironclad 
steamers  could  have  been  contracted  for  and  built  in  Europe — 
steamers  at  the  cost  of  two  millions  each,  could  have  been 
procured,  equal  in  every  way  to  the  '  Monitor.'  Thirty  millions 
would  have  got  fifteen  of  these,  which  might  have  been  enough 
for  our  purpose.  Five  might  have  been  ready  by  the  first  of 
January  last  to  open  some  one  of  the  ports  blockaded  on  our 
coast.  Three  of  these  could  have  been  left  to  keep  the  port 
open,  and  two  could  have  conveyed  the  cotton  across  the 
water  if  necessary.  Thus,  the  debt  could  have  been  promptly 
paid  with  cotton  at  a  much  higher  price  than  it  cost,  and  a 
channel  of  trade  kept  open  till  other  ironclads,  and  as  many 
as  were  necessary,  might  have  been  built  and  paid  for  in  the 
same  way.  At  a  cost  of  less  than  one  month's  present  expen 
diture  on  our  army,  our  coast  might  have  been  cleared.  Be 
sides  this,  at  least  two  more  millions  of  bales  of  the  old  crop  on 
hand  might  have  been  counted  upon  —  this  with  the  other  mak 
ing  a  debt  in  round  numbers  to  the  planters  of  $200,000,000. 
But  this  cotton,  held  in  Europe  until  its  price  became  fifty  cents 
a  pound,  would  constitute  a  fund  of  at  least  $1,000,000,000 
which  would  not  only  have  kept  our  finances  in  sound  condi 
tion,  but  the  clear  profit  of  $800,000,000  would  have  met  the 
entire  expenses  of  the  war  for  years  to  come."  1 

1  The  War  between  the  States,  vol.  ii.  781  (Appendix). 


288  The  Brothers'  War 

The  reader  who  carefully  reflects  over  the  passage 
just  quoted  may  well  think  that  the  extravagant  profit 
pictured  savors  more  of  Mulberry  Sellers  than  of  a 
cool-headed  statesman ;  but  if  the  war  price  of  cotton 
be  recalled  he  readily  agrees  that  under  the  plan  pro 
posed  the  south  could  easily  have  got  a  fleet  of  the  best 
ironclads.  Such  a  fleet  would  have  kept  the  southern 
ports  open.  The  advantage  of  which  would  have  been 
very  great.  It  would  have  held  the  Mississippi  from 
the  first,  or  have  recovered  it  after  the  capture  of  New 
Orleans.  It  would  have  cleared  the  gunboats  out  of 
all  the  navigable  rivers  in  the  south.  And  we  must  not 
forget  how  it  might  have  ravaged  the  northern  coast, 
perhaps  capturing  New  York,  and  forcing  an  early 
peace. 

I  must  make  you  see  the  greatness  of  cotton  as  a  re 
source.  There  has  been  from  soon  after  the  invention 
of  the  gin  a  steadily  increasing  world  demand  for  it,  and 
the  south  has  practically  monopolized  its  production. 
I  can  think  of  no  other  product  of  the  soil  except  wine 
and  liquor  that  is  as  imperishable.  But  wine  and  liquor 
spill,  leak,  and  evaporate,  while  cotton  does  neither.  If 
you  but  safe  it  against  fire  it  will  not  deteriorate  by  age. 
In  1884  I  was  told  of  a  sale  just  made  of  some  cotton  for 
which  the  owner  had  refused  the  famine  price  in  1865. 
It  brought  the  market  price  of  the  day,  and  experts 
said  it  sampled  as  well  as  new  cotton.  It  was  at  least 
19  years  old.  Wine  and  liquor  cannot  be  compressed, 
but  the  same  weight  of  raw  cotton  becomes  less  and  less 
bulky  every  year.  By  reason  of  the  foregoing,  cotton  is 
always  the  equivalent  of  cash  in  hand.  Now  add  the 
effect  of  the  steadily  growing  war  scarcity,  and  remem 
ber  how  easy  it  was  during  the  first  two  years  of  the  war 
to  carry  out  cotton  in  spite  of  the  blockade.  The  Eu 
ropean  purchasing  agent  of  the  Confederate  States  gov- 


Help  to  Union  Cause  by  Powers  Unseen   289 

ernment  says  "  it  possessed  a  latent  purchasing  power 
such  as  probably  no  other.  .  .  in  history  ever  had."1 
He  means  cotton.  There  were  several  million  bales  of  it 
in  the  confederacy,  all  of  which  could  be  had  for  the  tak 
ing —  much  of  it  for  merely  the  asking.  And  there  were 
a  legion  of  carriers  eager  to  run  the  blockade.  I  cannot 
understand  how  Professor  Brown  could  have  ever  writ 
ten,  "The  government  had  not  the  means  either  to  buy 
the  cotton  or  to  transport  it."2  Surely  the  government 
could  have  seized  the  cotton  as  easily  as  it  did  all  the 
men  of  military  age,  and  collected  the  tithes  in  kind. 

If  Toombs  had  been  president  of  the  southern  con 
federacy,  the  very  best  possible  use  of  its  cotton  as  a 
resource  would  have  been  made.  At  the  time,  if  but 
managed  with  the  financial  skill  which  he  always  showed, 
that  cotton  would  have  been  a  great  war  chest  in  a 
secure  place,  always  full  and  appreciating.  It  is  very 
probable  that  almost  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  the 
confederacy  would  have  struck  terror  into  its  adversa 
ries  with  some  warships  far  superior  to  any  with  which 
the  United  States  could  have  then  supplied  itself.  In 
this  case  there  never  would  have  been  any  Monitor. 
And  the  south  would  have  had  all  the  benefits  of  wise 
husbandry  and  conduct. 

1  The  supplies  for  the  Confederate  Army,  How  they  were  obtained  in 
Europe  and  How  paid  for.  —  Personal  Reminiscences  and  Unpublished 
History.  By  Caleb  Huse,  Major  and  Purchasing  Agent,  C.  S.  A.  Boston, 
Press  of  T.  R.  Marvin  &  Son,  1904. 

1  commend  this  narrative  to  Professor  Brown.     Should  he  study  it 
he  will  have  cause  to  retract  what  he  has  written  (The  Lower  South 
in  American   History,   164)  in  disparagement   of  this   resource.      Had 
Toombs,  or  Stephens,  or  Cobb  been  president  and  represented  by  such 
an  extraordinarily  able  agent,  the  Confederate  States  would  have  got 
ironclads,  broken  the  blockade,  kept  out  invaders,  and  had  a  money  that 
would  have  held  its  own  much  better  than  the  greenbacks  unsustained  by 
cotton  or  anything  like  it.     From  what  I  know  of  these  men  I  am  sure 
the  right  agent  would  have  been  found. 

2  Book  cited,  164,  165. 


290  The   Brothers'  War 

During  his  short  premiership  of  the  confederacy 
Toombs  showed  marked  ability.  Note  his  extraordi 
nary  insight  when  instructing  the  commissioners,  that 
"  So  long  as  the  United  States  neither  declares  war  nor 
establishes  peace,  the  Confederate  States  have  the  ad 
vantage  of  both  conditions ;  "  and  consider  how  accu 
rately  he  foresaw  that  the  north  would  be  rallied  as  one 
man  to  the  stars  and  stripes  by  attack  upon  Fort 
Sumter,  and  how  earnestly  he  opposed  the  proposed 
attack.1 

Stephens  was  thoroughly  against  the  policy  of  many 
pitched  battles.  He  counselled  from  the  very  first 
that  we  should  draw  the  invaders  within  our  terri 
tory,  where,  having  them  far  from  their  base  and  taking 
advantage  of  our  shorter  interior  lines,  we  could  when 
the  right  moment  came,  by  attacking  with  superior 
numbers,  virtually  destroy  their  entire  army.  The 
more  I  think  over  it,  the  more  clearly  I  see  that  this 
was  the  true  way  for  us  to  have  fought.  Stephens's  in 
fluence  would  have  been  so  great  with  Toombs  or  Cobb 
as  president  that  he  would  have  shaped  the  conduct  of 
the  war. 

There  would  have  been  no  keeping  of  inefficient  men 
in  high  command ;  and  no  efficient  one  would  have  been 
kept  out.  Mr.  Lincoln  would  have  had  an  executive 
rival  worthy  of  his  steel.  As  the  former  searched  dili 
gently  and  with  rare  judgment  for  his  commander-in- 
chief  and  at  last  found  him  in  Grant,  so  Toombs  would 
in  all  probability  have  found  the  proper  southern  gen 
eral  in  the  west.  It  would  have  been  Forrest.  The 
marvellous  military  genius  of  this  illiterate  man,  who  at 
the  beginning  of  the  war  could  not  have  put  a  recruit 
through  the  manual  of  arms,  showed  him  far  superior 
to  his  superiors  who  sacrificed  the  southern  army  at  Fort 
1  Stovall,  Life  of  Robert  Toombs,  226. 


Help  to  Union  Cause  by  Powers  Unseen   291 

Donelson.  The  lieutenant-colonel  would  not  surrender, 
and  his  escape  with  his  entire  command  proved  that  he 
could  have  executed  the  offer  he  had  made  to  the 
commander  to  pilot  the  whole  army  out.  From  this 
moment  Forrest  moves  on  and  upward  with  the  stride 
of  a  demigod.  The  night  after  Johnston  has  fallen  at 
Shiloh  he  alone  in  the  southern  army  discovers  that 
Grant  is  receiving  by  the  river  thousands  as  re-enforce 
ment,  and  he  gives  Beauregard  wise  counsel  which  the 
latter  is  not  wise  enough  to  heed.  Read  his  letter  of 
August  9,  1863,  to  Cooper,  adjutant-general  of  the  Con 
federate  States,1  in  which  he  proposes  to  do  what  will 
virtually  wrest  the  Mississippi  from  the  federals,  and  the 
sane  comment  thereon  of  his  biographer.2  Think  of 
him  just  after  the  battle  of  Chickamauga ;  how,  had  Bragg 
listened  to  him,  he  would  have  reaped  the  fruits  of  a 
great  victory  which  he  was  too  stupid  to  know  he  had 
won.  Meditate  the  capture  of  Fort  Pillow,  in  spite  of 
its  strong  defences  and  the  succoring  gunboat,  by  dispo 
sitions  of  his  troops  and  a  plan  of  attack  which,  though 
made  and  executed  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  are  the 
most  superb  and  brilliant  tactics  of  all  the  engagements 
of  the  brothers'  war.  And  his  incomparable  conduct  by 
which  the  army  of  Sturgis  was  almost  annihilated  at 
Brice's  Cross-Roads.  The  conception  of  Forrest  is  as 
yet,  even  in  the  south,  very  untrue.  He  is  thought  of 
only  as  always  meeting  charge  with  countercharge,  in  the 
very  front  crying  "  Mix !  "  sabring  an  antagonist,  and 
having  his  horse  killed  under  him.  When  he  is  rightly 
studied  he  is  found  to  be  a  happy  compound  of  the 
characterizing  elements  of  such  fighters  as  Mad  Anthony 
Wayne  and  Paul  Jones,  of  such  swoopers  and  sure  re- 
tirers  as  Marion  and  Stonewall  Jackson,  of  such  as  Han- 

1  Wyeth,  Life  of  General  Nathan  Bedford  Forrest,  268,  269. 

2  Id.  271. 


292  The  Brothers'  War 

nibal,  whose  action  both  before,  during,  and  after  the 
engagement,  is  the  very  best  possible.  Of  all  the  north 
ern  generals  Grant  showed  by  far  the  best  grasp  of  the 
military  problem.  I  think  Forrest's  grasp  was  equal. 
Toombs  would  have  divined  the  genius  of  Forrest. 
The  confederate  army  under  him  would  probably  have 
equalled  —  possibly  surpassed  —  the  achievements  and 
glory  of  that  under  Lee. 

It  was  one  of  Toombs's  epigrams  that  the  southern 
confederacy  died  of  too  much  West  Point.  Of  course 
one  must  not  unjustly  disparage  the  military  school. 
Yet  there  were  plainly  graduates  on  both  sides  who  had 
in  them  too  much  of  it.  This  was  true  of  Halleck  and 
McClellan  ;  also  of  Davis  and  Bragg.  Mr.  Davis,  by  rea 
son  of  his  exaggerated  West  Point  spirit,  was  not  nearly 
so  well  qualified  as  Mr.  Lincoln  for  finding  the  few 
real  generals  in  the  south.  Toombs,  with  the  help  of 
Stephens  and  all  the  real  statesmen  of  the  section,  would 
have  kept  the  best  generals  in  command. 

Let  us  briefly  summarize.  Had  Toombs  been  presi 
dent  these  things  would  have  followed : 

1.  The  cotton  of  the  south,  fully  realized  as  a  resource, 
would  have  given  her  an  adequate  gold  supply,  a  stable 
currency,  and  an  unimpaired  public  credit.     It  would 
have  also  kept  our  ports  open  and  the  hostile  gunboats 
out  of  our  rivers. 

2.  There  would  have  been  no  unwise  waste  of  our 
precious    soldiers.      As   it  was,  their  very  gallantry  in 
our  contest  with  a  foe  so  greatly  outnumbering,  was 
made  a  guaranty  of  defeat. 

3.  These  magnificent  soldiers  would  have  been  led 
always  by  the  best  commanders. 

These  were  resources  enough,  and  more  than  enough, 
to  have  won  for  the  south.  I  parallel  her  neglect  to 
use  them  with  the  supineness  of  the  French  Commune 


Help  to  Union  Cause  by  Powers  Unseen   293 

in  1871.  Lassigaray  tells  us  how  there  were  piles  of 
money  and  money's  worth  in  the  bank  deposits  and 
reserves,  which  could  have  all  been  had  by  mere  taking.1 
But  the  Commune  made  no  use  of  this  great  treasure. 
It  surprises  one  as  he  reads  of  it.  Then  it  occurs  to 
him  that  the  new  French  government  was  in  the  hands 
of  men  who  generally  had  had  no  experience  in  govern 
ment  whatever.  It  was  widely  different  with  the  south 
ern  confederacy.  No  other  revolutionary  government 
ever  started  with  so  little  jolt  and  difficulty.  The  grooves 
along  which  it  was  to  run  were  all  ready.  "  Confederate 
States "  was  instantaneously  substituted  for  "  United 
States  "  in  the  constitution,  organic  federal  statutes,  and 
the  thoughts  of  the  people,  and  the  administration  of 
the  new  government  seemed  to  everybody  in  the  south 
but  a  continuation  of  that  of  the  United  States.  And 
this  new  federation  was  inaugurated  by  the  best-trained 
statesmen  in  America.  That  these  men  should  have 
overlooked  the  great  resources  we  have  pointed  out  is  a 
far  more  strange  and  wonderful  blunder  than  was  that 
of  the  raw  and  inexperienced  managers  of  the  Commune. 
You  can  explain  it  only  by  recognizing  it  as  the  accom 
plishment  of  fate.  Fate  put  in  charge  of  the  fortunes  of 
the  confederacy  an  executive  as  just  as  ever  was  Aris- 
tides,  and  as  much  respected  and  confided  in  by  his 
people.  That  executive  most  conscientiously  drove  out 
of  the  public  counsels  the  only  men  who  could  have 
saved  the  southern  cause. 

To  the  foregoing  I  shall  add  but  a  few  other  instances 
briefly  told. 

Grant  was  at  the  opening  of  his  career  put  in  a  place 
which  taught  him  the  importance  of  gunboats,  and  held 
there  until  his  skill  in  using  them  had  given  him  resist 
less  prestige.  Beauregard's  failure  to  make  use  of  the 
1  See  his  i4th  chapter. 


294  The  Brothers'  War 

daylight  remaining  after  the  fall  of  Albert  S.  Johnston 
seems  to  have  been  prompted  by  the  powers  who  had 
the  future  conqueror  in  charge.  Had  he  been  sent 
against  Lee  in  1862  or  1863  he  would  hardly  have  done 
better  than  McClellan,  Burnside,  or  Hooker.  Compare 
how  the  powers  in  charge  of  the  Roman  empire  pre 
vented  a  too  early  encounter  of  Scipio  with  Hannibal. 

Ordinary  conduct  ought  to  have  captured  McClellan 
instead  of  driving  him  to  the  James.  The  tone  of  Mc- 
Clellan's  boasting  over  the  flank  movement  by  which  he 
successfully  marched  across  the  entire  front  of  Lee's 
army  within  cannon  shot  is  really  that  of  a  man  who 
feels  that  he  has  miraculously  escaped  an  unshunnable 
peril. 

The  directors  sent  Stuart  astray  and  hypnotized  Lee 
into  believing  that  Gettysburg  was  to  be  another  Chan- 
cellorsville. 

They  blinded  Davis  to  the  merits  of  Forrest.  Espe 
cially  to  be  thought  of  here  is  the  rejected  proposal  of 
the  latter  to  recover  the  Mississippi  shortly  after  the  fall 
of  Vicksburg. 

I  need  not  go  further.  The  student  of  the  brothers' 
war  can  add  to  the  foregoing  many  other  favors  shown 
the  union  cause  by  the  powers  in  the  unseen. 

Of  course  we  of  the  south  stood  by  our  side,  fighting 
to  the  last  against  increasing  odds  with  the  resoluteness 
of  hereditary  freemen.  In  spite  of  all  their  potency  the 
powers  were  often  hard  pressed  by  Lee,  Jackson,  For 
rest,  and  the  incomparable  valor  of  the  confederate  sol 
diers.  These  should  have  some  such  eternizing  epitaph 
as  this : 

"  For  four  years  they  kept  the  fates  banded  against 
them  uneasy." 

The  parallelism  of  the  fall  of  the  confederacy  to  that 
of  Troy  has  incalculably  deepened  the  interest  I  take  in 


Help  to  Union  Cause  by  Powers  Unseen   295 

Vergil's  great  description.  Especially  of  late  years  do 
I  realize  more  vividly  how  his  goddess  mother  removed 
the  cloud  darkening  his  vision,  and  gave  ^neas  to  see 
Neptune,  Juno,  and  Pallas  busy  in  the  destruction  of  the 
burning  city;  and  a  lurid  illumination  falls  upon  the 
statement, 

"  Apparent  dirae  facies  inimicaque  Troiae 
Numina  magna  deum."  l 

1  "  I  see  a  vision  of  awful  shapes  —  mighty  presences  of  gods  arrayed 
against  Troy."  &neid>  II.  622-23,  Transl.  by  JOHN  CONINGTON,  Writ 
ings,  II.,  Longmans,  Green  &  Co.  (1872). 


CHAPTER  XIII 

JEFFERSON    DAVIS 

FOR  some  time  after  the  brothers'  war  it  was  very 
generally  believed  that  Davis  had  been  one  of 
the  Mississippi  repudiators;  that  through  all 
his  ante-bellum  public  career  he  had  been  an  uncon 
ditional  secessionist  —  what  we  in  the  south  mean  by  a 
fire-eater ;  that  cherishing  an  accursed  ambition  for  the 
presidency  of  the  southern  confederacy  he  organized  a 
secret  conspiracy  which  consummated  secession ;  that 
as  the  chief  executive  of  the  Confederate  States  he 
aided  and  abetted  the  perpetration  of  inhuman  cruelties 
upon  federal  prisoners  of  war ;  that  he  was  accessory  to 
the  murder  of  President  Lincoln ;  and  that  when  cap 
tured  he  was  disguised  as  a  woman.  I  suppose  that 
these  accusations  —  all  of  which  are  utterly  untrue  — 
are  still  in  the  mouths  of  many  at  the  north.  They  have 
attained  some  currency  abroad.  I  note  that  the  leading 
German  encyclopedia  —  that  of  Brockhaus  —  repeats 
those  as  to  the  conspiracy  and  disguise.  But  "  The 
Real  Jefferson  Davis,"  as  Landon  Knight  has  of  late 
presented  him,1  —  without  hostile  bias  and  with  some 
thing  like  an  approach  to  completeness  —  is  at  least 
beginning  to  be  recognized  outside  of  the  south.  It  is 
about  as  certain  as  anything  in  the  future  can  be  that 
all  detraction  from  the  moral  character  and  patriotism 
of  Davis  will  after  some  while  wear  itself  out.  I  believe 

1  In  six  consecutive  numbers  of  the  Pilgrim,  beginning  with  that  of 
October,  1903.  This  is  a  monthly,  edited  by  Willis  J.  Abbot,  and  pub 
lished  by  the  Pilgrim  Magazine  Co.,  Ltd.,  Battle  Creek,  Mich. 


Jefferson  Davis  297 

far  greater  favor  than  mere  vindication  from  false  accu 
sation  will  at  last  be  awarded  him  in  every  part  of  his 
own  country  and  also  abroad.  Later  in  the  chapter  I 
shall  try  to  bring  out  fully  the  praise  and  appreciation 
which  world  history  will,  as  seems  probable  to  me. 
shower  upon  his  career.  Here  I  can  take  time  to  men 
tion  only  the  beginning  of  that  great  fame  which  we  of 
this  day  have  looked  upon.  We  saw  him  fall  from 
one  of  the  highest  and  proudest  places  in  which 
for  four  years  he  had  been  the  talk  and  envy  of  the 
earth.  We  saw  him  in  sheer  helplessness,  accused  of 
murder  and  treason,  his  feeble  health  and  personal  com 
fort  made  a  jest  of,  disrespect  and  insult  heaped  upon 
him — we  saw  him  endure  all  the  most  refined  tortures 
of  imprisonment.  Then  we  saw  him  set  free  —  his  inno 
cence  confessed  by  the  acts  of  his  accusers.  Then  for 
over  twenty  years  he  lived  with  the  people  who  under 
his  lead  had  been  conquered  and  despoiled ;  and  we 
saw  them  always  eager  to  pay  him  demonstrations  of  the 
warmest  love ;  we  saw  them  bury  him  with  inconsolable 
grief;  and  we  see  them  keeping  his  memory  green  by 
reinterring  him  in  the  old  capital  of  the  Confederate 
States,  giving  him  there  a  conspicuous  monument,  and 
making  the  anniversary  of  his  birth  a  legal  holiday  in 
different  States.  This  —  which  we  impressively  mark 
now  as  only  a  beginning  of  glory  —  must  develop  into 
something  far  larger. 

Whenever  Davis  conies  into  your  mind,  of  course, 
you  first  think  of  that  with  which  his  name  is  most 
closely  connected  —  his  elevation  and  his  great  fall. 
Therefore  it  is  quite  right  that  we  make  our  start  from 
this  point,  which  is,  that  he  was  the  head  of  a  subverted 
revolutionary  government.  He  is  one  of  a  few  who, 
like  Richard  Cromwell,  Napoleon,  and  Kruger,  were 
suffered  to  survive  deposition.  Nothing  in  nature  hates 


298  The  Brothers'  War 

a  rival  more  than   sovereignty  —  which,  be   it   remem 
bered,   is  the    representative   of  a    distinct   nationality. 
Note  how  inevitably  a  young  queen  bee  is  killed  by  her 
own    mother   when   found    in   the    hive   by   the   latter. 
Humanity  has  not  in  this  particular  evolved  as  yet  very 
far    above    bee   nature;    and   the    fate    of    Maximilian, 
emperor  of  Mexico,  usually  befalls  the  sovereign  head  of 
a  defeated  revolution.     To  the  student  of  history  it  is  a 
surprise  that  the  life  of  Davis  was  spared  when  Ameri 
can    frenzy  was  at  its  height.     Think  of  some  of  the 
things   which   then  occurred.     Mrs.   Surratt   and  Wirz 
were  hanged;   the  cruel  cotton  tax;   the  negroes  were 
made  rulers  of  the  southern  whites ;  it  was  provided  ex 
post  facto  that  the  high  moral  duty  of  paying  for  the 
emancipated  slaves  should  never  be  done.     While  good 
men  and  women  both  of  the  north  and  the  south  will 
always   censure   with   extreme    severity   the    treatment 
which  Davis  as  a  prisoner  received,  they  ought  to  note 
it  as  a  most  significant  sign  of  American  progress  that 
he   was    at   last   allowed  to  go  forth  and  live   without 
molestation  the  rest  of  his  life  among  his  old  followers. 
Before  we  begin  the  sketch  which  we  contemplate  let 
us  bring  out  more  vividly  the  novelty  of  his  example 
by  contrasting  him  with  the  failing   leaders    of   revo 
lutions  mentioned  above.     Richard  Cromwell  could  be 
tolerated  as  a  private  man  by  the  restored  royal  gov 
ernment,  because  his  protectorate  had  been,  so  far  as 
he  himself  is  considered,  a  mere  accident.      It  was  the 
mighty  Oliver,  his  father,  that  overthrew  and  beheaded 
Charles    I,  and    then    took   the   reins   of  rule.     These, 
when  he  died,  came  to  his  son,  who  in  ability  and  am 
bition  was  a  cipher.     They  who  set  him  aside  would 
have  been  ashamed  to  confess  the  slightest  fear  of  him. 
His  captors  exiled  Napoleon,  and  Kruger  exiled  him 
self.     Richard  Cromwell,  having  been  cast  out  of  the 


Jefferson  Davis  299 

protectorate,  living  forgotten  in  England,  is  no  parallel 
to  Davis  spending  his  last  years  in  Mississippi  honored 
by  the  entire  south  with  mounting  demonstration  to 
his  death.  Had  Napoleon  lived  in  France  and  Kruger 
in  the  Transvaal,  each  after  his  overthrow,  they  would 
be  parallels.  As  it  is,  the  subsequent  life  of  Davis  is 
without  any  parallel. 

Having  thus  shown  you  what  it  is  that  Davis  espe 
cially  examples,  let  us  now  give  you  briefly  such  a 
biography  as  suits  the  purpose  of  this  book. 

The  fairies  bestowed  upon  him  treasures  of  mind  and 
heart,  of  form,  mien,  and  face,  of  speech  and  manners. 
He  was  not  of  the  very  first  rank,  as  Webster,  Toombs, 
and  Lee,  who  suggest  comparison  with  the  Pheidian 
Zeus,  nor  was  he  in  the  next  with  Poseidon  and  Ares. 
When  President  Pierce  and  the  members  of  his  cabinet 
were  passing  by  Princeton,  a  throng  of  citizens  and  stu 
dents  called  them  out  during  the  stop  of  the  train  at  the 
Basin.  As  we  went  away  it  seemed  to  me  that  no 
speech  but  that  of  Davis  was  remembered.  Compli 
ments  were  rained  upon  him.  At  last  a  student  from 
New  York  State  cried,  "  He  's  an  Apollo  !  "  and  all  the 
hearers  assented  with  enthusiasm.  This  placed  him 
right,  —  at  the  head  of  the  Olympians  in  the  third 
circle. 

Though  he  became  a  very  prominent  political  leader, 
the  choice  of  a  profession  made  by  him  was  that  of  a 
soldier.  '  And  that  profession  was  always  his  first  love. 
His  early  education,  though  very  deficient  and  limited, 
was  far  superior  to  that  with  which  Calhoun  had  to  be 
content  until  he  was  eighteen.  But  Davis  had  when  a 
boy  something  which  supplies  educational  defects  —  a 
taste  for  study  and  a  fondness  of  and  access  to  books. 
When  at  the  age  of  thirty-five  he  made  his  debut  in 
politics  he  had  become  really  a  well-schooled  and 


300  The  Brothers'  War 

highly  cultured  man.  He  completed  his  West  Point 
course,  graduating  in  July,  1828.  His  wife  says:  "He 
did  not  pass  very  high  in  his  class ;  but  he  attached  no 
significance  to  class  standing,  and  considered  the  favorable 
verdict  of  his  classmates  of  much  more  importance." 1 

He  served  in  the  army  until  June  30,  1835,  when  he 
resigned.  I  will  cull  from  the  entertaining  narrative  of 
Mrs.  Davis  certain  occurrences  of  his  army  life  which 
are  characteristic. 

Reaching  a  ferry  on  Rock  river  in  Illinois,  in  1831, 
with  his  scouts,  he  found  the  boat  stopped  by  ice,  and 
the  mail  coach  with  certain  wagons  going  to  the  lead 
mines  waiting  on  the  bank.  All  the  crowd  put  them 
selves  at  his  direction.  He  had  the  men  to  cut  blocks 
from  the  ice  for  a  bridge.  Water  was  poured  upon  each 
block  as  soon  as  it  was  laid,  and  this  freezing,  the  block 
was  kept  firmly  in  its  place.  Whenever  a  cutter  would 
fall  overboard,  he  was  sent  to  turn  himself  round  and 
round  before  the  fire  until  he  was  dry  and  ready  to 
resume  work.  The  bridge  was  soon  finished,  and  the 
entire  party  crossed  the  river.  This  incident  shows  that 
there  was  something  in  Davis's  appearance  that  invited 
full  trust,  and  that  he  was  unwontedly  quick  and  in 
genious  in  expedient. 

How  he  disabled  a  disobedient  soldier  of  ferocious 
temper  and  great  size  by  an  unexpected  blow,  and  then 
beat  him  into  complete  submission ;  and  how  he  cap 
tivated  the  other  soldiers  by  announcing  that  he  would 
not  notice  the  affair  officially,  illustrates  his  talent  for 
command. 

Men  desperate  and  well  armed  had  taken  possession 
of  the  lead  mines,  and  they  were  to  be  removed.  He 
tried  to  induce  their  consent  by  making  them  a  speech. 
Some  weeks  later  he  sought  another  conference.  Find- 

1  Memoir  of  Jefferson  Davis,  vol.  i.  59. 


Jefferson  Davis  30! 

ing  a  number  of  them  in  a  drinking  booth,  he  was 
begged  by  his  orderly  not  to  go  in.  "  They  will  be 
certain  to  kill  you/'  the  orderly  said ;  "  I  heard  one  of 
them  say  they  would." 

"  Lieutenant  Davis  entered  the  cabin  at  once,  and, 
as  they  expressed  it,  'gave  them  the  time  of  day*  [that 
is,  he  said  "  Good-morning  "  or  what  the  hour  demanded]. 
He  immediately  added,  after  saluting  them,  (  My  friends, 
I  am  sure  you  have  thought  over  my  proposition  and 
are  going  to  drink  to  my  success.  So  I  shall  treat  you 
all.'  They  gave  him  a  cheer."  l 

How  much  more  heroic  is  such  Caesar-like  courage 
and  tact  in  quelling  the  mob  than  to  butcher  misguided 
men  with  musketry. 

I  have  reserved  for  emphasis  here,  as  illustrating 
Davis's  presence  of  mind  and  readiness  in  emergency, 
two  incidents  which  are  earlier  in  time  than  what  I  have 
just  been  telling.  The  first  is  this.  One  of  the  profes 
sors  disliked  and  was  inclined  to  disparage  Davis  while 
he  was  a  cadet  at  West  Point.  Lecturing  on  presence 
of  mind,  this  professor  fixed  his  eye  on  Davis  "  and  said 
he  doubted  not  there  were  many  who,  in  an  emergency, 
would  be  confused  and  unstrung,  not  from  cowardice, 
but  from  the  mediocre  nature  of  their  minds.  The  in 
sult  was  intended,  and  the  recipient  of  it  was  powerless 
to  resent  it.  A  few  days  afterwards,  while  the  building 
was  full  of  cadets,  the  class  were  being  taught  the  process 
of  making  fireballs,  when  one  took  fire.  The  room  was 
a  magazine  of  explosives.  Cadet  Davis  saw  it  first,  and 
calmly  asked  of  the  doughty  instructor,  '  What  shall  I 
do,  sir?  This  fireball  is  ignited.'  The  professor  said, 
'  Run  for  your  lives ! '  and  ran  for  his.  Cadet  Davis 
threw  it  out  of  the  window,  and  saved  the  building 
and  a  large  number  of  lives  thereby."2 

1  Memoir,  vol.  i.  86.  2  Id.  52,  53. 


302  The  Brothers'  War 

In  the  affair  last  told,  Davis  showed  a  freedom  from 
confusion  and  an  alertness  that  is  very  rare.  But  the 
second  thing  which  I  have  to  tell  is  still  more  re 
markable. 

While  stationed  at  Fort  Crawford  in  1829,  he  had  set 
out  in  a  boat  with  some  men  to  cut  timber,  accompanied 
by  two  voyageurs. 

"  At  one  point  they  were  hailed  by  a  party  of  Indians  who 
demanded  a  trade  of  tobacco.  As  the  Indians  appeared  to 
have  no  hostile  intentions,  the  little  party  rowed  to  the  bank 
and  began  to  parley.  However,  the  voyageurs  .  .  .  soon  saw 
that  their  peaceful  tones  were  only  a  cloak.  They  warned 
Lieutenant  Davis  of  the  danger,  and  he  ordered  his  men  to 
push  out  into  the  stream  and  make  the  best  time  they  could 
up  the  river.  With  yells  of  fury  the  Indians  leaped  into  their 
canoes  and  gave  chase.  There  was  little,  if  any,  chance  for  the 
white  men  to  escape  such  experienced  rowers.  ...  If  taken 
.  .  .  death  by  torture  was  inevitable.  They  would  have  been 
captured  had  not  Lieutenant  Davis  thought  of  rigging  up  a  sail 
with  one  of  their  blankets.  Fortunately  the  wind  was  in  their 
favor,  but  it  was  very  boisterous.  As  it  was  a  choice  between 
certain  death  by  the  hands  of  the  Indians,  or  possible  death  by 
drowning,  they  availed  themselves  of  the  slender  chance  left 
and  escaped."  * 

These  things  which  we  have  selected  to  tell  of  him 
prove  that  he  had  in  large  measure  some  of  the  endow 
ments  which  are  indispensable  to  the  excellent  soldier. 
They  will  be  recalled  by  you  when  we  tell  his  feats  in 
Mexico.  I  must  say  here  that  I  do  not  mean  to  claim 
first-rate  ability  for  him ;  but  I  do  believe  that  he  was 
equal  or  almost  equal  to  the  best  in  that  great  depart 
ment  of  the  military  requiring  the  powers  of  the  gifted 
officer  and  not  those  of  the  few  born  generals  of  the 
world. 

1  Memoir,  Id.  vol.  i.  59,  60. 


Jefferson  Davis  303 

It  is  a  most  amiable  touch  that  he  left  the  army  to 
marry  a  woman  the  choice  of  his  heart,  and  give  her  a 
happy  home.  He  cordially  sacrificed  for  her  an  occu 
pation  which  he  loved  only  less  than  herself.  He  had  had 
as  brilliant  a  career  as  could  be  won  by  a  lieutenant  in 
garrison  duty  and  service  against  the  Indians.  It  must 
be  remembered  he  had  been  promoted  to  first  lieutenant 
for  gallantry. 

It  is  proper  to  mention  here  one  other  fact  of  his 
army  life.  He  had  resolved  that  if  the  regiment  to 
which  he  belonged  should  be  sent  to  help  execute  the 
force  bill  in  South  Carolina,  he  would  resign.  Though 
he  never  was  a  nullifier,  his  conscience  could  not  per 
mit  him  to  abet  in  any  way  the  coercion  of  a  sovereign 
State,  as  he  always  believed  each  one  of  the  United 
States  to  be. 

His  wife  lived  only  a  few  months.  Her  death  was  a 
fell  blow.  Her  husband  mourned  her  for  nearly  ten 
years.  Then  he  made  a  most  happy  marriage  with  the 
lady  who  survives  him. 

In  1836  —  the  next  year  after  the  death  of  his  first 
wife  —  he  settled  on  a  plantation.  Mr.  Knight  is  espe 
cially  happy  in  telling  how,  with  his  elder  brother 
Joseph,  who  had  been  a  successful  lawyer,  but  was 
now  a  rich  planter,  as  instructor  and  guide,  he  studied 
diligently  for  some  while.  To  quote: 

"  During  the  period  of  their  residence  together,  the  time  not 
required  by  business  the  brothers  devoted  to  reading  and  dis 
cussion.  Political  economy  and  law,  the  science  of  government 
in  general  and  that  of  the  United  States  in  particular,  were  the 
favorite  themes.  Locke  and  Justinian,  Mill,  Adam  Smith,  and 
Vattel  divided  honors  with  the  Federalist,  the  Resolutions  of 
ninety-eight,,  and  the  Debates  of  the  Constitutional  Convention. 
It  was  said  they  knew  every  word  of  the  last  three  by  memory ; 
and  it  is  certain  that  year  after  year,  almost  without  interruption, 


304  The  Brothers'  War 

they  sat  far  into  the  night  debating  almost  every  conceivable 
question  that  could  arise  under  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States." 

Jefferson  Davis,  as  his  congressional  speeches  and  his 
book  show,  became  deeply  versed  in  the  subjects  of  the 
joint  study  just  described.  I  must  note,  however,  that 
the  discussion  which  engaged  him  for  such  a  consider 
able  period  of  his  ante-public  life  was  had  only  with  one 
who  was  of  the  same  State-rights  creed  as  he  himself 
was,  and  that  it  was  all  in  the  closet,  as  it  were.  You 
can  only  begin  the  making  of  a  great  lawyer  by  feigned 
cases  and  moot  courts.  Likewise  the  true  political  leader 
must  early  be  plunged  into  real  contentions  over  ques 
tions  of  actual  interest,  and  thus  almost  from  the  very 
first  mix  practice  with  theory.  Compare  Webster  and 
Toombs,  each  at  his  outset  combating  with  the  ablest 
lawyers  of  his  State  as  adversaries,  and  also  publicly 
discussing  varied  questions  of  policy.  I  suspect  that  this 
prolonged  closet  training,  with  its  abundance  of  academic 
debate,  had  much  to  do  in  developing  Davis  into  that 
supra-logical  consistency,  stiffness,  and  unmodifiability 
of  opinion  which  is  one  of  his  special  differences  as  a 
practical  statesman  from  the  two  great  men  last  men 
tioned.  This,  and  the  mental  habitude  given  by  his 
military  education  and  experience,  mark  him  as  sui 
generis  among  our  political  leaders.  His  public  career 
shows  more  of  the  doctrinaire  and  precisian  than  can  be 
found  in  any  other  one  of  these. 

In  the  long  post-graduate  course  which  he  took  in 
private  under  his  brother,  he  was  preparing  for  public 
life  without  being  aware  of  it,  as  it  seems  to  me. 

He  had  now  but  one  acquisition  to  make  —  to  think 
on  his  legs  and  tell  his  thoughts  at  the  same  time.  Ex 
tempore  speakers  are  generally  made.  But  Davis  was  a 
born  one.  He  did  not  have  that  experience  at  the  bar 


Jefferson  Davis  305 

and  in  the  State  legislature  which  has  been  the  begin 
ning  of  so  many  famous  American  orators.  The  demo 
crats  of  his  county  nominated  him  for  the  legislature  in 
1843,  and  his  first  experience  in  public  speaking  was  in 
a  stump-debate  immediately  afterwards  with  the  redoubt 
able  S.  S.  Prentiss,  Davis  then  being  thirty-five  years 
old.  The  debate  consumed  most  of  the  day.  The  dis 
putants  had  each  fifteen  minutes  at  a  time.  The  result 
of  the  campaign  was  in  favor  of  Prentiss.  As  Davis,  a 
democrat,  was  merely  leading  a  forlorn  hope  in  a  county 
overwhelmingly  whig,  that  was  to  be  expected.  But  the 
pluck,  readiness,  and  power  which  he  exhibited  in  this, 
his  maiden  effort,  pitted  as  he  was  against  the  ablest 
speaker  of  the  State,  astounded  the  auditors,  and  it 
seemed  even  to  the  whigs  that  the  raw  debater  while 
nominally  losing  had  really  triumphed. 

The  next  experience  he  had  is  thus  narrated  by  Mr. 
Knight :  "  Mr.  Davis  took  a  conspicuous  part  in  the 
presidential  campaign  of  1844,  and  was  chosen  as  one 
of  the  Polk  electors.  Before  this  campaign  he  was  but 
slightly  known  beyond  his  own  county,  but  at  its  conclu 
sion  his  popularity  had  become  so  great  that  there  was  a 
general  demand  in  the  ranks  of  his  party  that  he  should 
become  a  candidate  for  congress  in  the  following  year." 

He  had  to  receive  just  one  more  lesson  as  a  speaker. 
In  1845  Calhoun  was  coming  to  Natchez.  Davis  was 
selected  to  welcome  him  with  a  speech.  He  made  care 
ful  preparation,  which  his  wife,  whom  he  had  lately 
married,  took  down  at  his  dictation.  But  when  Calhoun 
had  come,  after  a  moment  or  two  of  slowness  in  the 
exordium,  Davis  gave  up  trying  to  recite  from  memory, 
and  delivered  with  grace  and  effect  an  unpremeditated 
speech  of  taking  appropriateness.1 

1  Mrs.  Daris  tells  all  the  details  most  delightfully.  Memoir,  vol.  i. 
207-212. 

20 


3°6 


The  Brothers'  War 


What  Mrs.  Davis  says  of  him  as  a  speaker  is  so  just 
and  in  such  good  taste,  that  I  quote  it : 

"  From  that  day  forth  no  speech  was  ever  written  for  delivery. 
Dates  and  names  were  jotted  down  on  two  or  three  inches  of 
paper,  and  these  sufficed.  Mr.  Davis's  speeches  never  read  as 
they  were  delivered ;  he  spoke  fast,  and  thoughts  crowded  each 
other  closely ;  a  certain  magnetism  of  manner  and  the  exceed 
ing  beauty  and  charm  of  his  voice  moved  the  multitude,  and 
there  were  apparently  no  inattentive  or  indifferent  listeners. 
He  had  one  power  that  I  have  never  seen  excelled ;  while 
speaking  he  took  in  the  individuality  of  the  crowd,  and  see 
ing  doubt  or  a  lack  of  coincidence  with  him  in  their  faces, 
he  answered  .  .  .  with  arguments  addressed  to  the  case  in 
their  minds.  He  was  never  tiresome,  because,  as  he  said,  he 
gave  close  attention  to  the  necessity  of  stopping  when  he  was 
done. 

Only  so  much  of  his  eloquence  has  survived  as  was  indiffer 
ently  reported.  The  spirit  of  the  graceful  periods  was  lost.  He 
was  a  parenthetical  speaker,  which  was  a  defect  in  a  written 
oration,  but  it  did  not,  when  uttered,  impair  the  quality  of 
his  speeches,  but  rather  added  a  charm  when  accentuated  by 
his  voice  and  commended  by  his  gracious  manner.  At  first  his 
style  was  ornate,  and  poetry  and  fiction  were  pressed  from  his 
crowded  memory  into  service ;  but  it  was  soon  changed  into  a 
plain  and  stronger  cast  of  what  he  considered  to  be,  and  doubt 
less  was,  the  higher  kind  of  oratory.  His  extempore  addresses 
are  models  of  grace  and  ready  command  of  language." l 

1  Memoir,  vol.  i.  214,  215.  Compare  what  Stephens  says  of  the 
speech  made  by  President  Davis  at  the  African  church  in  Richmond  in 
February,  1865,  just  after  the  return  of  our  Commissioners  who  had 
sought  in  vain  for  terms  of  peace  which  the  south  could  consider.  We 
give  the  part  of  the  passage  pertinent  here. 

"  The  newspaper  sketches  of  that  speech  were  meagre,  as  well  as  in 
accurate  .  .  .  and  .  .  .  came  far  short  of  so  presenting  its  substance  even, 
as  to  give  those  who  did  not  hear  it  anything  like  an  adequate  concep 
tion  of  its  full  force  and  power.  It  was  not  only  bold,  undaunted,  and 
confident  in  tone,  but  had  that  loftiness  of  sentiment  and  rare  form  of 
expression,  as  well  as  magnetic  influence  in  its  delivery,  by  which  the 


Jefferson  Davis  307 

He  took  his  seat  in  the  United  States  house  of  repre 
sentatives  in  December,  1845,  he  and  Toombs,  who  was 
two  years  younger,  beginning  their  congressional  careers 
together.  Davis  made  a  very  creditable  speech  on  the 
Oregon  question  early  in  February,  1846.  He  was  a 
modest  member,  but  he  did  all  the  duties  of  his  place 
with  praiseworthy  diligence. 

Although  he  was  a  thoroughgoing  anti-tariff  democrat 
and  Webster  a  pro-tariff  whig  leader,  he  could  not  be 
induced  to  join  in  the  effort  to  make  political  capital  for 
his  own  party  by  blackening  the  name  of  Webster.  The 
minority  report  of  the  committee  which  investigated  the 
conduct  of  Webster,  as  secretary  of  state,  was  really 
made  by  Davis,  who  was  one  of  the  committee.  The 
stand  taken  by  the  latter,  and  the  true  presentation 
which  he  made,  at  last  got  the  whole  committee  to  adopt 
his  report  substantially.  Webster  was  greatly  pleased 
with  it. 

Early  in  May,  1846,  Taylor  had  won  his  first  victories. 
On  the  29th  Davis,  supporting  joint  resolutions  of  thanks 
to  the  general  and  his  army,  made  reply  to  what  he 
deemed  were  unwarranted  reflections  upon  West  Point. 
He  emphasized  Taylor's  operations  as  proving  the  high 
value  of  military  education.  He  asked  Sawyer  of  Ohio, 
who  had  disparaged  the  Academy,  if  the  latter  believed 
that  a  blacksmith  or  tailor  could  have  done  such  good 
work.  Thus,  without  knowing  it,  he  trod  upon  the  toes 
of  two  members  of  the  house ;  for  Sawyer  had  been  a 
blacksmith,  and  Andrew  Johnson,  of  Tennessee,  a  tailor. 

passions  of  the  people  are  moved  to  their  profoundest  depths,  and  roused 
to  the  highest  pitch  of  excitement.  Many  who  had  heard  this  Master  of 
Oratory  in  his  most  brilliant  displays  in  the  senate  and  on  the  hustings, 
said  they  never  before  saw  him  so  really  majestic.  The  occasion,  and 
the  effects  of  the  speech,  as  well  as  all  the  circumstances  under  which 
it  was  made,  caused  the  minds  of  not  a  few  to  revert  to  like  appeals  by 
Rienzi  and  Demosthenes."  War  between  the  States,  vol.  ii.  623,  824. 


308  The  Brothers'  War 

Sawyer  took  it  good-humoredly,  but  Johnson,  the  next 
day,  passionately  defended  tailors,  and  used  language 
very  offensive  to  Davis,  implying  that  the  latter  belonged 
to  "  an  illegitimate,  swaggering,  bastard,  scrub  aristoc 
racy."  To  this  the  latter,  justly  indignant,  rejoined  with 
cutting  severity.  There  was  never  any  love  lost  between 
the  two  afterwards.  When  President  Lincoln  was 
murdered  Johnson,  succeeding  him,  committed  the 
unspeakable  folly  of  offering  by  proclamation  $100,000 
reward  for  the  arrest  of  Davis  as  accessory.  When 
Davis,  having  been  captured,  was  told  of  the  proclama 
tion  he  said  to  General  Wilson  —  hoping  his  words 
would  be  reported  to  Johnson  —  that  there  was  one  man 
in  the  United  States  who  knew  the  charge  was  false; 
this  was  the  man  who  had  signed  the  proclamation ; 
"  for,"  said  Davis,  "  he  at  least  knew  that  I  preferred 
Lincoln  to  himself." 

Of  course  had  Davis  possessed  the  chief  qualifications 
of  popular  leadership  he  would  have  made  a  fast  friend 
instead  of  a  bitter  enemy  of  this  man,  whose  rise  from 
low  estate  to  greatness  proves  that  he  had  in  him  ele 
ments  of  manhood  and  virtue  that  ought  to  have  homage 
from  the  highest  and  proudest. 

It  was  by  his  course  in  the  Mexican  war  that  Davis 
commenced  life  in  the  eye  of  the  nation.  Without  can 
vassing  for  the  place —  he  never  did  canvass  for  a  place 
-  he  was  elected  colonel  of  the  First  Mississippi  vol 
unteers,  and  "  he  eagerly  and  gladly  accepted."  The 
president,  authorized  by  a  new  law,  offered  to  make  him 
a  brigadier  general.  Mrs.  Davis  says  •  "  My  husband 
expressed  his  preference  for  an  elective  office;  when 
pressed,  he  said  that  he  thought  volunteer  troops  raised 
in  a  State  should  be  officered  by  men  of  their  own  se 
lection,  and  that  after  the  elective  right  of  the  volunteers 
ceased,  the  appointing  power  should  be  the  governor 


Jefferson  Davis  309 

of  the  State  whose  troops  were  to  be  commanded  by 
the  general.  This  was  his  first  sacrifice  to  State  rights, 
and  it  was  a  great  effort  to  him."  1 

General  Scott  doubted  if  the  percussion  lock  was  as 
well  suited  to  field  use  as  the  flint  lock,  but  Davis  knew 
better.  He  had  his  men  furnished  with  the  percussion- 
lock  rifle,  a  very  superior  arm  to  the  old  smooth-bore. 
He  drilled  his  regiment  well.  And  he  kept  its  members 
from  pillaging. 

As  the  storming  of  Monterey  opened,  the  head  of  the 
column  recoiled  in  confusion  from  a  deadly  cross-fire, 
"  producing  the  utmost  confusion  among  the  front  of  the 
assaulting  brigade.  The  strong  fort,  Taneira,  which  had 
contributed  most  to  the  repulse,  now  ran  up  a  new  flag, 
and  amid  the  wild  cheering  of  its  defenders  redoubled 
its  fire  of  grape  and  canister  and  musketry,  under  which 
the  American  lines  wavered  and  were  about  to  break. 
Colonel  Davis,  seeing  the  crisis,  without  waiting  for 
orders,  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  his  Mississippians, 
and  gave  the  order  to  charge.  With  prolonged  cheers 
his  regiment  swept  forward  through  a  storm  of  bullets 
and  bursting  shells.  Colonel  Davis,  sword  in  hand, 
cleared  the  ditch  at  one  bound,  and  cheering  his  soldiers 
on,  they  mounted  the  works  with  the  impetuosity  of  a 
whirlwind,  capturing  artillery  and  driving  the  Mexicans 
pell-mell  back  into  the  stone  fort  in  the  rear.  In  vain 
they  sought  to  barricade  the  gate ;  Davis  and  McClung 
[the  lieutenant-colonel]  burst  it  open,  and  leading  their 
men  into  the  fort,  compelled  its  surrender  at  discretion. 
Taneira  was  the  key  of  the  situation,  and  its  capture  in 
sured  victory.  On  the  morning  of  the  23d  of  Septem 
ber,  the  following  day,  Henderson's  Texas  Rangers, 
Campbell's  Tennesseeans,  and  Davis's  Mississippians, 
the  latter  again  leading  the  assault,  stormed  and  cap- 

1  Memoir,  vol.  i.  146,  147. 


310  The  Brothers'  War 

tured  El  Diabolo,  and  the  next  day  General  Ampudia 
surrendered  the  city."  l 

Davis's  quickness,  coolness,  and  dash  —  and  especially 
his  promptness  to  take  such  wise  initiative  as  is  permis 
sible  to  a  colonel  in  action  —  shone  forth  conspicuously 
in  this  affair. 

He  was  the  very  soul  of  the  glorious  stand  of  the 
Americans  at  Buena  Vista  against  odds  of  more  than 
4  to  I.  At  the  opening  of  the  battle  a  ball  drove  a  part 
of  his  spur  into  the  right  foot  just  below  the  instep, 
making  a  very  painful  wound.  He  kept  his  seat  as 
though  nothing  had  happened.  Later  in  the  day,  his 
bleeding  foot  thrown  over  the  pommel,  he  spurred  his 
horse  into  leaping  a  ravine,  in  which  he  saw  a  horse 
and  cart  beneath  him  as  he  flew  over.  But  his  great 
exploit  was  the  re-entering  line  of  his  regiment  and 
Bowles's  Indianians,  with  which  he  received  the  charge 
of  a  host  of  heavy  cavalry.  His  rifles  being  without 
bayonets,  the  hollow  square,  then  the  approved  mode 
of  defence,  was  not  to  be  thought  of.  So  necessity,  the 
mother  of  invention,  suggested  to  him  a  formation  which 
poured  something  like  two  crossing  enfilades  into  the 
head  of  the  cavalry  column.  The  brilliant  conception 
was  brilliantly  executed.  The  carnage  that  befel  the 
cavalry  drove  it  from  the  field.  Did  not  the  spirit  of 
Napoleon  looking  on  regret  that  he  had  not  given  the 
pesky  Mamelukes  like  punishment?  The  world  has 
noted  how  Sir  Colin  Campbell  learned  from  Davis  the 
right  way  of  opposing  infantry  to  the  onset  of  heavy 
cavalry. 

The  great  distinction  won  most  deservedly  by  Davis, 
as  the  colonel  of  a  raw  regiment  in  these  important  en 
gagements,  is,  so  far  as  I  know,  without  any  parallel.  It 
was  but  natural  that  he  should  always  afterwards  believe 
1  Landon  Knight,  "  The  Real  Jefferson  Davis,"  already  cited. 


Jefferson  Davis  311 

himself  to  be  a  great  military  genius.     Of  course  he  had 
become  famous  throughout  the  whole  country. 

There  was  a  vacancy  in  one  of  the  United  States  sen- 
atorships  from  Mississippi,  and  Davis  was  appointed  to 
fill  it.  I  need  not  go  into  much  detail  at  this  point.  He 
was  warmly  greeted  at  his  entrance  into  the  upper  house. 
He  maintained  himself  with  growing  ability.  While  he 
was  independent  and  self-reliant  enough  now  and  then 
to  differ  with  Calhoun,  in  the  main  he  followed  the  latter 
as  his  leader.  There  was  a  dignity  and  poise  in  his 
nature  that  suited  the  senate  better  than  the  house  of 
representatives.  And  he  was  doubtless  frank  when  he 
asserted  later  that  he  preferred  the  senate  to  any  other 
place.  As  I  contemplate  his  record  at  this  part  of  his 
life  he  impresses  me  as  that  one  of  all  the  more  promi 
nent  southern  public  men  who  was  most  fixed  in  the 
opinion  that  the  very  surest  preservative  of  the  union 
was  for  the  south  to  be  always  unflinching  and  utterly 
uncompromising  in  demanding  exact  enforcement  of 
every  constitutional  protection  of  slavery.  He  loved 
the  union  most  fondly.  It  was  only  the  south  that  he 
loved  more.  Conscientious  doctrinaire  as  he  was,  he 
believed  that  the  rights  of  the  south  were  so  plain  and 
palpable  that  if  they  were  but  stated  they  would  be  con 
ceded  by  the  great  mass  of  the  northern  people.  He 
thought  it  was  to  encourage  disunion  to  surrender  even 
a  jot  of  our  claim  to  equality  in  the  Territories  and  that 
the  fugitive  slave  law  should  be  fully  enforced.  His 
anticipation  was  that  the  more  we  yielded  to  the  anti- 
slavery  men  the  more  we  would  be  asked  to  yield,  until 
at  last  we  would  be  driven  into  the  ditch,  when  we  could 
save  the  south  only  by  secession.  So  he  counselled  with 
all  his  might  that  the  south  should  resolve  to  surrender 
nothing  whatever  —  to  go  out  of  the  union  rather  than 
so  to  do.  Let  the  north  understand  this  and  the  aboli- 


312  The  Brothers'  War 

tion  party  will  disappear.  That  is  the  only  way  to  save 
the  union.  This  explains  why  he  refused  to  support  the 
compromise  measures  of  1850.  He  was  beaten  for 
governor  of  Mississippi  on  that  issue.  He  was  classed 
with  the  fire-eaters.  But  that  was  utterly  untrue.  Re 
member  that  in  1860  he  actually  contemplated  being 
the  democratic  presidential  candidate,  and  that  Mas 
sachusetts  sent  a  delegation  to  the  Charleston  conven 
tion  instructed  for  him. 

A  word  or  two  as  to  his  secretaryship  of  war.  He 
was  as  up  to  date  in  adopting  every  new  thing  of  merit 
as  he  had  been  in  insisting  upon  percussion-lock  rifles 
for  his  regiment  in  the  Mexican  war.  The  diligence 
and  prolonged  labor  which  he  conscientiously  gave  his 
official  duties  were  truly  exemplary.  I  wish  especially 
to  have  my  reader  reflect  upon  two  things  belonging 
here.  In  selecting  men  to  fill  offices,  from  the  highest 
to  the  lowest,  he  was  utterly  regardless  of  their  politics. 
When  remonstrated  with  by  democratic  partisans  for  not 
giving  democrats  the  preference  in  competition  for 
appointments,  he  declared  positively  that  he  should 
always  make  fitness  and  qualification  the  only  conditions 
of  such  selection.  And  his  actions  as  long  as  he  held 
the  important  office  spoke  even  louder  than  his  words. 
Surely  here  is  an  example  for  these  times  to  profit  by. 
The  second  thing  really  belongs  to  the  same  class  as  the 
first.  It  is  that  when  civil  war  actually  prevailed  in 
Kansas  between  the  anti-slavery  men  on  one  side  and 
the  pro-slavery  men  on  the  other,  and  the  commander 
of  the  federal  troops  in  the  Territory  would  virtually  be 
absolute  in  power,  though  Davis  was  the  very  extreme 
of  pro-slavery  he  gave  the  place  to  Colonel  Sumner,  an 
outspoken  abolitionist,  "  whose  honor,  ability,  and  judg 
ment  recommended  him  as  the  best  man  for  the  difficult 
duty." l 

1  Landon  Knight,  "  The  Real  Jefferson  Davis." 


Jefferson  Davis  313 

The  secretaryship  must  be  noted  as  deepening  the 
regular-army  grooves  in  which  Davis's  thoughts  and 
tastes  had  long  been  moving. 

He  became  United  States  senator  again  in  1857,  which 
position  he  held  until  the  secession  of  his  State.  I  need 
touch  upon  nothing  but  the  prominent  part  he  took. 
Without  knowing  it  he  became  the  guide  that  conducted 
the  south  in  the  aggressive  defensive  which  the  closing 
in  around  her  of  the  hostile  lines  imperatively  dictated. 
All  that  he  did  of  importance  but  led  up  to  or  supported 
his  famous  resolutions  of  February  2,  1860.  Their  gist 
was  that  if  the  judiciary  and  executive  could  not  and 
the  Territorial  legislature  would  not  protect  slave  prop 
erty  in  any  of  the  Territories,  congress  was  bound  to 
pass  efficiently  protecting  laws,  to  remain  of  force  until 
the  Territory  was  admitted  as  a  State,  with  a  constitution 
that  authorized  or  prohibited  slavery. 

Compare  the  speech  he  made  for  these  resolutions 
with  that  made  for  them  by  Toombs,  and  the  wide  dif 
ference  of  the  two  men  comes  out  plainly.  The  former 
is  the  height  of  commonplace  morality  and  patriotism, 
expressed  with  manly  strength  and  eloquence,  while 
the  speaker  does  not  see  clearly  into  the  gulf  of  the 
brothers'  war  into  which  his  measure  has  been  made  by 
the  fates  the  lever  to  plunge  America.  That  of  Toombs 
shows  titanic  mastery  of  law  and  statesmanship,  and 
almost  full  discernment  of  the  national  catastrophe  at 
the  door.  It  is  destined,  I  believe,  to  stand  in  the  high 
est  class  of  great  speeches. 

Compare  the  last  speeches  of  each  in  the  senate. 
Toombs's  justification  of  secession  is  with  argument  and 
appeal  to  conscience  that  the  greatest  men  cannot,  and 
only  cosmic  forces,  the  fates,  the  directors  of  evolution, 
can  answer.  Davis's  does  satisfy  the  conscience  of  the 
typical  southerner,  and  in  the  tone  preserved  from  be- 


3 14  The  Brothers'  War 

ginning  to  end  is  a  marvel  of  propriety.  The  pathos  of 
his  leave-taking  melted  the  sternest  hearts  on  the  other 
side.  It  was  especially  in  his  freedom  from  offensive 
words  and  the  gentlemanly  self-restraint  of  his  manner 
that  Davis  showed  as  decidedly  superior  to  the  other. 
In  the  speech  of  Toombs  last  noticed  there  are  some 
harsh  and  heated  words  that  I  would  blot  into  complete 
oblivion  if  I  could.  There  is  not  a  single  line  in  the 
other  that  I  can  find  fault  with.  I  will  here  parallel 
them  in  another  place  that  is  strikingly  illustrative. 
Some  years  after  the  war  the  people  of  Mississippi 
wanted  to  send  Davis  back  to  the  United  States  senate. 
To  this  end  the  legislature  memorialized  him  to  apply 
for  the  removal  of  his  disability.  He  replied  that 
repentance  ought  always  to  precede  asking  for  pardon, 
and  that  he  had  not  yet  repented.  One  day  about  the 
same  time  a  sympathizing  southerner  asked  Toombs  if 
the  yankees  had  pardoned  him  yet.  He  scowled  his 
darkest,  and  thundered,  "  No.  And  God  damn  'em,  I 
have  n't  pardoned  them."  Of  course  the  average  man 
or  woman  will  cordially  approve  the  decorum  of  Davis's 
reply,  and  on  reflection  will  censure  the  other. 

Davis  was  completely  representative  of  the  real  chiv 
alry  of  the  south;  and  from  the  Mexican  war  on,  this 
was  more  and  more  recognized  in  the  section.  When 
he  was  made  president  of  the  confederacy  the  great 
majority  of  the  people  approved.  He  is  such  a  gentle 
man  ;  so  conscientious ;  so  attentive  to  his  public  duties ; 
and  then  his  military  education  and  experience  make 
him  far  superior  to  Lincoln  —  this  was  said  by  the  gen 
eral.  Thus  were  his  disqualifications  for  the  place  con 
cealed  from  the  people  of  the  south. 

His  chief  defect  was  that  not  being  a  successful  busi 
ness  man,  he  was  not  a  practical  statesman.  On  this 
point  we  have  already  said  enough. 


Jefferson  Davis  315 

His  own  judgment  upon  himself  was  that  he  ought  to 
command  the  armies  of  the  confederacy.  To  the  very 
last  he  believed  he  had  the  extreme  of  military  ability. 
During  the  gloomy  days  that  set  in  after  Gettysburg  he 
often  exclaimed,  "  If  I  could  take  one  wing  and  Lee  the 
other,  I  think  we  could  between  us  wrest  a  victory  from 
those  people." l 

But  he  did  not  have  extraordinary  military  capacity, 
as  appears  from  the  facts  which  I  will  now  tell. 

He  was  on  the  field  at  First  Manassas  when  that 
unprecedented  panic  seized  the  federal  army.  It  was 
instantaneously  understood  by  the  latest  recruit  looking 
on  from  our  side.  The  men  and  line  officers  around 
me  ejaculated,  "  We  ought  to  press  forward  and  go  into 
Washington  with  'em."  Davis  with  his  training  should 
have  seen  better  even  than  these  raw  volunteers,  and 
recognized  it  was  his  part  by  pursuit  to  accelerate  the 
flight  and  raise  that  panic  to  its  top.  There  were  re 
maining  several  hours  of  daylight,  during  which  five  of 
his  men  could  chase  a  hundred  and  a  hundred  put  ten 
thousand  to  flight,  and  when  night  came  the  excited 
imagination  of  the  fliers  would  re-enforce  the  confed 
erates  with  a  vast  host  of  destroying  monsters  behind 
and  before.  The  federals  losing  all  organization,  were 
racing  to  escape  over  the  bridge  at  Washington  which 
was  a  little  more  than  twenty  miles  away.  They  were 
choking  the  roads  with  abandoned  vehicles  and  artillery. 
As  it  was,  they  seriously  choked  the  bridge.  Had  there 
been  rapid  advance  by  us,  and  firing  in  the  rear,  it  is 
more  than  probable  we  should  have  got  the  bridge  un 
harmed.  We  should  have  added  thousands  to  our  prison 
ers.  But  far  more  important  than  this,  would  have  been 
the  arms,  ammunition,  wagons,  horses,  quartermaster  and 
commissary  supplies  of  all  sorts  —  in  short,  the  entire 
1  Mrs.  Davis's  Memoir,  vol.  i.  392. 


316  The  Brothers'  War 

baggage  of  the  enemy  —  that  would  have  been  ours  for 
the  taking.  And  if  the  federals  had  destroyed  the  bridge 
before  we  reached  it,  we  should  have  had  McDowell's 
pontoons,  or  captured  material  out  of  which  to  make  a 
bridge  of  our  own.  We  should  have  crossed  somehow, 
and  at  the  place  which  circumstances  and  the  insight  of 
genius  suggested.  The  capital  would  have  fallen,  really 
without  a  blow;  and  what  an  immense  addition  to  our 
booty  would  have  been  here.  And  the  prestige  !  In  a 
day  or  two  our  flag  would  have  waved  over  Baltimore, 
the  consequence  being  that  Maryland,  with  a  throng  of 
most  true  and  valiant  fighters,  would  have  been  won  for 
the  Confederate  States,  and  its  northern  line  instead  of 
the  Potomac  would  have  become  the  frontier.  All  this 
would  have  happened  if  Davis  had  been  a  Caesar  and 
had  Caesar-like  used  the  one  great  opportunity  of  the 
war.  It  must  be  set  down  to  his  credit  that  he  did  far 
more  than  Johnston  and  Beauregard  insist  upon  pursuit. 
But  he  does  not  seem  to  have  thought  of  it  until  night; 
and  at  last  he  permitted  himself  to  be  reasoned  out 
of  it. 

There  have  been  earnest  efforts  to  justify  the  fateful 
supineness  of  our  army  after  this  victory.  We  were 
without  transportation  means,  and  a  retreating  army  al 
ways  outruns  its  pursuers,  said  Johnston.  Mr.  Knight 
says  Northrop  had  left  us  without  commissary  supplies, 
and  of  course  men  who  had  nothing  to  eat  had  to  wait 
until  they  could  be  fed.  Beauregard  says  we  ought  to 
have  made  for  the  upper  Potomac,  which  was  fordable. 
All  such  reasons  come  from  those  who  ignore  the  situa 
tion.  A  real  general  would  have  said  to  his  soldiers,  in 
the  first  moment  of  the  panic,  "  You  are  weary;  it  will 
rest  you  to  chase  your  flying  foe;  you  can  catch  him 
because  of  the  obstructing  bridge.  You  are  hungry; 
there  are  full  haversacks  and  commissary  wagons  of 


Jefferson  Davis  317 

your  enemy  just  beyond  Centerville  without  defenders. 
Forward,  and  escort  the  grand  army  into  Washington 
city!"  And  such  a  general  with  just  what  infantry  he 
could  find  to  hand,  all  the  while  being  re-enforced  by 
eager  men  catching  up,  pressing  forward  as  persistently 
as  Blucher  spurred  with  his  cavalry  after  the  French 
flying  from  Waterloo,  would  have  been  in  sight  of 
Washington  when  the  sun  rose. 

Mr.  Knight  sets  forth  very  truly  the  incapacity  of 
Davis  as  the  military  chieftain  of  the  Confederate 
States.1  I  would  abridge  what  can  be  said  here  under 
these  heads: 

1.  Each  particular  army  ought  to  have  operated  as 
a  part  of  the  whole  force  of  the  confederacy,  and  that 
whole  force  ought  to  have  been  wielded  as  one  machine. 
Instead  of  trying  to  effect  this  end,  the  president  de 
cided  that  all  exposed  points  must  be  defended.     The 
result  was  that  these  were  taken  one  after  another  by 
superior  armies.     A   military  man  will   understand   me 
when  I  say  his  strategy  was  below  mediocrity.     True 
strategy  dictated  the  abandonment  of  many  places  in 
order  to  assemble  by  using  our  shorter  interior  lines  a 
resistless  power  on  a  really  decisive  occasion.     McClel- 
lan,  in  Virginia,  and  Grant,  in  Mississippi,  ought  each  to 
have  been  captured  as  Burgoyne  and  Cornwallis  were. 

2.  He  selected    his  generals   and   important  officers 
according  to  his  likes  and  dislikes,  and  not  according  to 
their  true  qualifications. 

3.  He  was  without  practical  administrative  talent  in 
any  high  degree.     Such  a  man  as  Joseph  E.  Brown,  of 
Georgia,  would  have  shown  far  superior  to  him. 

It  will  doubtless  be  the  decision  of  future  history  that 
he  was  neither  statesman  nor  military  man  of  sufficient 
ability  for  the  presidency.  He  did  not  want  it.  Com- 

1  In  his  fourth  chapter. 


318  The  Brothers'  War 

pare  him  as  secession  was  dawning,  with  Toombs,  who 
was  the  man  of  all  to  be  president.  The  latter  scent 
ing  battle  in  the  air,  was  really  eager  for  the  inevitable 
fighting  to  begin;  Davis  was  cast  down  and  dejected. 
He  loved  the  union,  and  it  was  inexpressibly  bitter  to 
him  to  part  with  it.  And  then  he  was  sure  that  there 
would  be  a  long  and  bloody  brothers'  war.  What  he 
wanted  was  to  fight  for  the  south  so  dear  to  him.  The 
news  of  his  election  as  president  was  perhaps  the  greatest 
surprise  of  his  life.  Says  Mrs.  Davis  :  "  When  reading 
the  telegram  he  looked  so  grieved  that  I  feared  some 
evil  had  befallen  our  family.  After  a  few  minutes'  pain 
ful  silence  he  told  me,  as  a  man  might  speak  of  a  sen 
tence  of  death."  l 

Writing  of  his  inauguration  at  Montgomery,  he  says 
to  his  wife :  "  The  audience  was  large  and  brilliant, 
Upon  my  weary  heart  were  showered  smiles,  plaudits, 
and  flowers;  but,  beyond  them,  I  saw  troubles  and 
thorns  innumerable."  2 

And  she  tells  this  of  his  inauguration  as  president 
of  the  permanent  government : 

"  Mr.  Davis  came  in  from  an  early  visit  to  his  office  and 
went  into  his  room,  where  I  found  him  an  hour  afterwards  on 
his  knees  in  earnest  prayer  'for  the  divine  support  I  need 
so  sorely'  [as  he  said].  .  .  .  The  inauguration  took  place 
at  twelve  o'clock.'  [The  anterior  proceedings  having  been 
described,  the  contemporary  account  she  quotes  goes  on 
thus : ] 

"'The  president-elect  then  delivered  his  inaugural  address. 
It  was  characterized  by  great  dignity,  united  with  much  feeling 
and  grace,  especially  the  closing  sentence.  Throwing  up  his 
eyes  and  hands  to  heaven  he  said,  '  With  humble  gratitude  and 
adoration,  acknowledging  the  providence  which  has  so  visibly 
protected  the  confederacy  during  its  brief  but  eventful  career, 

1  Memoir,  vol.  ii.  18.  2  Id.  32,  33. 


Jefferson  Davis  319 

to  Thee,  O  God,  I  trustingly  commit  myself,  and  prayerfully 
invoke  Thy  blessing  on  my  country  and  its  cause/" 

Then  she  adds : 

"  Thus  Mr.  Davis  entered  on  his  martyrdom.  As  he  stood 
pale  and  emaciated,  dedicating  himself  to  the  service  of  the 
confederacy,  evidently  forgetful  of  everything  but  his  sacred 
oath,  he  seemed  to  me  a  willing  victim  going  to  his  funeral 
pyre ;  and  the  idea  so  affected  me  that,  making  some  excuse,  I 
regained  my  carriage  and  went  home."  * 

So  did  this  thrice-noble  man  sacrifice  his  dearest 
wishes  and  with  superhuman  resolution  step  into  the 
arena  at  the  command  of  the  fates,  to  be  the  target  of 
their  wrath  against  his  people. 

He  was  like  Hamlet  upon  whom  destiny  had  imposed 
a  high  task  far  beyond  his  powers.  We  can  believe 
that  to  the  end  of  his  presidency  Davis  sorely  sighed 
more  and  more  often : 

"The  time  is  out  of  joint:  O  cursed  spite 
That  ever  I  was  born  to  set  it  right." 

His  official  career  from  beginning  to  end  was  full  of 
fatal  mistakes.  But  in  every  one  of  these  he  did  the 
right  —  to  use  Lincoln's  grand  word  —  as  God  gave  him 
to  see  it.  This  will  more  and  more  through  all  the 
future  turn  his  failure  to  glory.  He  will  be  like  Hector, 
who  draws  the  admiration  of  the  world  a  thousand-fold 
more  than  Achilles,  his  vanquisher.2 

At  the  last,  when  the  sword  of  Grant  had  beaten 
down  the  sword  of  Lee,  and  all  of  us,  it  seemed  to  me, 
knew  that  it  was  the  highest  duty  of  patriotism  to  yield 
our  arms,  he  was  for  fighting  on.  Casabianca  would 

1  Memoir,  vol.  ii.  180-183. 

2  Mr.  Landon   Knight  is  happy  in  showing  the  fidelity,  diligence, 
courage,  and  unsurpassed  conscientiousness,  of  Mr.  Davis  in  his  presi 
dency,  and  especially  how  he  bore  himself  amid  the  multiplying  dis 
asters  of  the  last  two  years. 


320  The  Brothers'  War 

not  go  with  those  who  were  leaving  the  burning  ship 
until  his  dead  father  bade  him  go.  Davis  would  not 
abandon  the  cause  of  his  nation  without  its  command ; 
and  it  could  give  none ;  for  it  was  dead  and  he  did  not 
know  it.  He  was  trying  his  hardest  to  reach  the  west, 
intent  upon  prosecuting  the  war  from  a  new  base,  when 
he  was  taken. 

His  capture  was  accepted  by  the  southern  people  as 
the  fall  of  the  blue  cross.  Every  man,  woman,  and 
child  old  enough  to  think,  in  the  late  confederacy 
became  sick  and  faint.  Sorrow  after  sorrow,  and  grief 
after  grief  tore  their  hearts.  The  first  was  the  thought, 
for  all  the  blood  we  have  poured  out  during  four 
years  of  such  effort  on  the  battlefield  as  the  world 
never  knew  before  we  have  lost ;  we  have  been  beaten, 
and  we  are  subjugated.  The  next  thought  that  pierced 
was,  the  property  that  made  our  homes  the  sweetest 
and  most  comfortable  on  earth  has  all  been  destroyed, 
and  for  the  rest  of  their  lives  our  dear  ones  must  pine  in 
hardship  and  misery.  O  how  this  pang  actually  killed 
many  old  men  and  women  !  It  seems  to  me  that  heart 
failure  commenced  in  the  south  with  the  great  harvest 
it  gathered  in  the  first  five  years  succeeding  the  war. 
But  the  agony  of  agonies  was  that  the  negroes  were  put 
over  us.  Those  five  years  —  particularly  the  last  three 
of  them  —  are  the  one  ugly  dream  of  my  life.  To  pay 
his  debts,  which  would  have  been  a  small  thing  to  him 
had  he  kept  his  slaves,  but  which  were  now  monsters, 
my  father  overworked  himself,  while  trying  to  make 
a  cotton  crop  with  freedmen.  I  did  not  learn  of  his  im 
prudence  until  I  had  been  summoned  to  see  him  die. 
There  was  something  like  this  in  every  family.  A 
night  of  impoverishment,  misery,  contumely,  and  insult 
descended  upon  us,  and  the  sun  would  not  rise.  I  kept 
the  stoutest  heart  that  I  could.  Now  and  then  it  was  a 


Jefferson  Davis  321 

comforting  day  dream  to  imagine  how  well  it  would 
have  been  for  me  if  I  had  fallen  in  the  front  of  my  men 
on  the  second  day  of  Gettysburg,  when  I  was  trying  my 
utmost  to  make  them  do  the  impossibility  of  charging 
across  the  narrow  bog  staying  us,  and  mixing  with  the 
men  in  blue  lining  the  other  side.  Had  that  happened 
to  me  I  should  never  have  known,  in  the  flesh,  of  our 
decisive  defeats,  nor  of  the  trials  of  my  people  after  they 
laid  down  arms ;  and  even  if  my  grave  could  not  have 
been  found,  there  would  have  been  at  a  place  here  and 
there  for  some  years  honorable  mention  of  me  with  tears 
on  Memorial  Day,  to  gladden  my  spirit  taking  note. 
This  would  sometimes  be  my  thought,  and  thousands 
of  others  had  like  thoughts. 

Early  in  this  time  of  sorrow  and  suffering  the  women 
of  the  south  instituted  Memorial  Day.  In  this  cere 
monial  they  do  rites  of  remembrance  to  the  fallen  sol 
diers  of  the  confederacy.  These  soldiers  lie  in  every 
graveyard  from  the  Ohio  and  Potomac  to  the  Rio 
Grande.  When  the  day  comes  these  women  in  their 
unforgetting  love  assemble  the  people,  have  praises  and 
lamentations  of  their  dead  darlings  fitly  spoken;  and 
then  they  deck  their  graves  with  the  fairest  flowers  of 
spring.  It  is  an  annual  holiday,  sacred  to  grief  for  our 
heroes  who  died  in  vain.  It  is  the  fairest,  tenderest,  and 
sweetest  testimonial  of  love  ever  given  — love  from  those 
who  have  nothing  else  to  bestow,  lavished  upon  those 
who  can  make  no  return ;  and  it  is  further  the  most 
splendid  and  glorious,  being  the  co-operative  demon 
stration  of  a  whole  people  of  "  true  lovers."  * 

1  "  We  embraced  the  cause  [i.  e.,  of  the  Confederate  States]  in  the 
spirit  of  lovers.  True  lovers  all  were  we  —  and  what  true  lover  ever 
loved  less  because  the  grave  had  closed  over  the  dear  and  radiant  form  ? 
—  And  so  we — we,  at  least,  who  as  men  and  women  inhaled  the  true 
spirit  of  that  momentous  time  —  come  together  on  these  occasions  not 
only  with  the  fresh  new  flowers  in  our  hands,  but  with  the  old  memories 

21 


322  The  Brothers*  War 

1  cannot   say   where   and   when   the   observance   of 
Memorial    Day  began.      Perhaps   Miss   Davidson  cor 
rectly   asserts   that  it  was   in    Petersburg,  Virginia,  in 
i866.2     It  had  reached  its  height  at  Charleston,  South 
Carolina,   in   the   spring   of  1867,  when    as   prelude  to 
decorating  the  graves  in   Magnolia  cemetery,  Timrod's 
hymn,  containing  this  oft-quoted  passage,  was  sung: 

"  Behold  !  your  sisters  bring  their  tears, 
And  these  memorial  blooms. 

"  Small  tributes  !  but  your  shades  shall  smile 
More  proudly  on  these  wreaths  to-day, 
Than  when  some  cannon-moulded  pile 
Shall  overlook  this  bay. 

"  Stoop,  angels,  hither  from  the  skies  ! 
There  is  no  holier  spot  of  ground 
Than  where  defeated  valor  lies, 
By  mourning  beauty  crowned." 

The  "  true  lovers  "  could  no  more  forget  their  living 
leader  in  prison  than  they  could  forget  their  soldiers  in 
the  grave.  "  Out  of  sight,  out  of  mind  "  could  not  be 
said  of  Davis  during  his  two  years'  confinement.  The 
concern  of  his  people  mounted  steadily.  They  made 
all  his  sufferings  their  own,  lamenting  and  praying  for 
him  as  a  loved  father.  When  he  was  about  to  be  re 
leased  on  bond  the  news  gave  the  south  a  wilder  joy 

in  our  thoughts  and  the  old,  but  ever  fresh,  lover  spirit  in  our  hearts,  and 
seek  to  make  these  occasions  not  unworthy  of  the  cause  we  loved  un 
selfishly  and  of  these  its  sleeping  defenders."  Major  Joseph  B.  Gumming, 
in  introducing  General  Butler,  orator  of  the  day,  when  the  Confederate 
soldiers'  graves  were  decorated  at  the  Augusta  (Ga.)  cemetery  in  1895. 

2  The  .celebration  at  Covington,  Georgia,  April  26,  1866,  was  complete. 
My  friend   Hon.  J.  M.  Pace  has  just  shown  me  a  copy  of  the  local  news 
paper  issued  the  next  day,  containing  an  account  of  the  ceremony  and 
the  rarely  appropriate  address  which  he  made  as  part  thereof.     The  fact 
is  that  the  observance  of  Memorial  Day  commenced  everywhere  in  the 
south  at  the  time  just  mentioned. 


Jefferson  Davis  323 

than  did  the  unexpected  victory  of  First  Manassas.  He 
was  brought  in  custody  to  Richmond  by  a  James 
river  steamboat.  Mrs.  Davis  thus  describes  how  he  was 
received : 

"A  great  concourse  of  people  had  assembled.  From  the 
wharf  to  the  Spottswood  Hotel  there  was  a  sea  of  heads  —  room 
had  to  be  made  by  the  mounted  police  for  the  carriages.  The 
windows  were  crowded,  and  even  on  to  the  roofs  people  had 
climbed.  Every  head  was  bared.  The  ladies  were  shedding 
tears.  .  .  .  When  Mr.  Davis  reached  the  Spottswood  Hotel, 
where  rooms  had  been  provided  for  us,  the  crowd  opened  and 
the  beloved  prisoner  walked  through;  the  people  stood  un 
covered  for  at  least  a  mile  up  and  down  Main  street.  As  he 
passed,  one  and  another  put  out  a  hand  and  lightly  touched  his 
coat.  As  I  left  the  carriage  a  low  voice  said  :  '  Hats  off,  Virgin 
ians/  and  again  every  head  was  bared.  This  noble  sympathy  and 
clinging  affection  repaid  us  for  many  moments  of  bitter  anguish. 

When  Mr.  Davis  was  released,  one  gentleman  jumped  upon 
the  box  and  drove  the  carriage  which  brought  him  back  to  the 
hotel,  and  other  gentlemen  ran  after  him  and  shouted  them 
selves  hoarse.  Our  people  poured  into  the  hotel  in  a  steady 
stream  to  congratulate,  and  many  embraced  him." 

Bear  in  mind  the  people,  and  where  it  was,  and  when 
it  was,  from  whom  this  show  of  respect  so  great,  so 
earnest  and  unfeigned,  spontaneously  came.  They  were 
of  that  part  of  the  south  which  had  lost  more  in  blood, 
property,  and  devastation  than  any  other,  and  who,  one 
might  think,  were  too  embittered  against  their  defeated 
leader  to  show  him  anything  but  disapproval.  They 
were  also  of  a  State  which  had  not  been  readmitted  into 
the  union.  The  axe  was  suspended  over  their  necks  by 
a  party  seeking  excuses  for  letting  it  fall ;  by  a  party  to 
whom  Davis  was  the  most  hated  of  men.  Surely  these 
Virginians  who  thus  risked  their  fortunes  were  the  truest 
of  lovers. 


324  The  Brothers'  War 

No  reader  of  mine,  though  he  search  history  and 
encyclopedias  through  and  through  for  years,  can  find 
anything  like  the  Southern  Memorial  Day  and  the  honors 
given  Davis  in  Richmond  as  we  have  just  told.  They 
unmistakably  mark  an  ascent  of  humanity.  But  it  is  not 
my  purpose  to  emphasize  them  as  specially  signalizing 
the  south.  Their  great  lesson  is  not  learned  if  it  is  not 
understood  that  they  are  glories  of  federal  government. 
Under  any  other  form  of  government  such  demonstra 
tions  would  be  suppressed  as  disloyal  and  treasonable. 

For  more  than  twenty-two  years  after  this  auspicious 
day  the  ex-president  of  the  southern  confederacy  lived 
most  of  his  time  among  his  people.  Their  love  for  him 
steadily  grew.  He  proved  worthy  of  it.  He  would  not 
accept  the  bounty  they  stood  ready  to  shower  upon  him, 
and  he  was  poor  and  without  money-making  faculty. 
When  Mississippi  wanted  to  make  him  United  States 
senator  again,  he  felt  that  he  was  too  old  and  broken  to 
serve  the  State  efficiently,  and  he  declined.  It  occurred 
to  all  of  us  that  he  sorely  needed  the  salary  of  the  place. 
He  struggled  on  under  the  load  of  poverty  and  ill-health. 
All  of  us  knew  that  the  latter  came  from  that  cruel  and 
inhuman  imprisonment,  and  the  more  he  suffered  the 
closer  our  hearts  drew  to  him.  The  cause  of  his  section 
he  justified  to  the  last,  and  with  all  his  energy.  His 
book  defending  that  cause  was  written  under  difficulty 
almost  insurmountable  by  man.  His  character  as  one 
tried  in  every  way  and  found  true  came  out  clearer 
and  clearer.  He  showed  more  and  more  of  spotless 
virtue,  becoming  all  the  while  to  us  a  stronger  justifica 
tion  of  the  fight  we  had  made  under  him  for  the  lost 
cause.  We  thought  to  ourselves  with  pride  that  the 
world  will  some  day  learn  what  a  good  man  he  was,  and 
that  will  be  our  complete  vindication  from  the  slanders 
now  current. 


Jefferson  Davis  325 

Let  me  tell  of  some  of  the  other  demonstrations  made 
over  him.  I  witnessed  that  in  Atlanta,  in  1886.  April  30, 
all  the  State  of  Georgia  was  there,  as  it  seemed.  Old  and 
young,  white  and  colored,  waited  impatiently  for  the 
railroad  train  bringing  him  from  Montgomery.  My 
wife,  divining  the  rare  sight  thus  to  be  gained,  secured  a 
station  out  of  town  where  she  could  see  the  train  pass 
without  obstruction.  As  long  as  she  lived  afterwards, 
his  car,  prodigally  and  appropriately  bedecked  with  the 
fairest  May  flowers  of  the  sunny  south,  was  her  proverb 
for  that  which  pleases  too  greatly  for  description. 

When  he  had  come  out  of  his  bower  of  flowers  and  we 
knew  he  was  resting,  we  felt  as  if  the  angel  of  the  Lord 
was  here  with  tidings  of  great  joy  for  all  our  people. 

Who  can  describe  the  rejoicing  of  the  next  day  that 
came  forth  everywhere  as  Mr.  Davis  showed  himself  to 
his  people  !  I  have  seen  popular  outbursts  of  gladness, 
but  nothing  like  this.  It  surpassed  in  profundity  of 
feeling  and  sustained  energy  and  flow  that  which  seemed 
to  come  straight  out  of  the  ground  when,  in  1884,  we 
knew  at  last  that  Cleveland  was  elected,  and  the  south 
was  convulsed  with  an  ecstasy  of  happy  surprise.  The 
women  and  men  who  had  tasted  the  war  all  crying ;  all 
pouring  benedictions  upon  his  gray  hairs  as  they  came 
in  sight;  "God  bless  him"  displayed  on  every  corner. 
I  am  utterly  unable  adequately  to  report  this  grand 
occasion.  I  will  tell  only  a  few  things  that  I  saw  or 
heard  of.  He  passed  by  a  long  line  of  school-children 
in  Peachtree  street.  They  made  the  sincere  and  decided 
demonstrations  of  children  whose  pleasure  is  at  its 
height.  But  what  was  especially  noticeable  to  me  here 
was  the  behavior  in  the  section  of  colored  children. 
Their  delight  seemed,  if  that  were  possible,  to  be  some 
what  wilder  and  more  unrestrained  than  that  of  the 
white  children.  The  occurrence  has  come  back  to  me  a 


326  The  Brothers'  War 

thousand  times.  Is  it  to  be  explained  by  Mr.  Davis's 
character  as  a  master,  to  whom ,  as  to  all  really  typical 
masters,  his  slaves  were  but  a  little  lower  in  his  affec 
tions  than  his  children  ?  Or  was  it  unconscious  approval 
of  the  resistance  by  the  south  with  all  her  might  against 
the  emancipation  proclamation,  the  end  of  which  may 
be  the  wholesale  destruction  of  the  black  race  in  Amer 
ica,  such  approval  being  suggested  by  a  cosmic  influence 
as  yet  inexplicable? 

When  he  was  going  through  Mrs.  Hill's  yard  to  enter 
her  house,  little  girls  on  each  side  of  the  walk  threw 
bouquets  before  him,  every  one  begging,  "  Mr.  Davis, 
please  step  on  my  flowers."  The  feeble  man  tried  to 
gratify  all  of  them.  The  flowers  that  he  did  step  on 
were  eagerly  caught  up  by  the  owners,  to  be  treasured 
as  the  dearest  of  relics  and  keepsakes. 

I  was  told  that  some  old  grayhead  who  met  him  dur 
ing  the  day,  gently  raised  Mr.  Davis's  hands  to  his  lips, 
saying,  "  Let  me  kiss  the  hands  that  were  manacled  for 
me,"  and  as  he  kissed  his  tears  fell  in  a  flood. 

What  we  have  just  described  occurred  in  Georgia  — 
a  State  in  which  of  all  during  the  brothers'  war  the  most 
formidable  opposition  to  his  administration  was  devel 
oped.  This  opposition  was  lead  or  upheld  by  Toombs, 
both  the  Stephenses,  and  Brown  —  the  most  influential 
of  all  the  Georgians  at  that  time.  That  for  all  this  the 
State  gave  him  this  wonderful  ovation  shows  how  deep 
and  strong  is  the  southern  sentiment  that  glorifies  the 
lost  cause.  It  was  Henry  Grady,  a  Georgian  revering 
and  treasuring  the  men  I  have  just  mentioned,  who  when 
Mr.  Davis  was  in  Atlanta,  in  1886,  called  him  the  un 
crowned  king  of  our  hearts,  the  words  evoking  plaudits 
from  the  entire  south.  And  remember  that  Georgia 
voted  for  Greeley  in  1872,  although  Toombs  and  the 
Stephenses  opposed  him;  I  think  I  was  representative 


Jefferson  Davis  327 

of  the  dominant  public  feeling  at  the  time.  While  my 
companions  and  I  avowed  the  fullest  confidence  in 
Greeley's  integrity  and  statesmanship,  we  each  said  we 
were  in  haste  to  honor  with  our  votes  the  northern  man 
who  got  Mr.  Davis  bailed  and  became  one  of  his  sure 
ties.  And  Georgia  is  among  the  States  which  has  made 
June  3  a  legal  holiday,  because  it  is  the  anniversary  of 
Mr.  Davis' s  birth. 

Some  northern  paper  sympathetically  described  the 
reception  given  Mr.  Davis  in  Atlanta,  in  1886,  as  the 
swan  song  of  the  southern  confederacy.  And  to  me  it 
has  always  been  the  funeral  of  the  old  south.  But  there 
were  other  obsequies  and  swan  songs.  When  he  died 
December  6,  1889,  the  south  sorrowed  as  it  never  sor 
rowed  before.  We  are  pleased  to  quote  from  the 
memoir,  the  noblest  monument  a  true  wife  has  ever 
given  a  dead  husband  —  far  nobler,  more  splendid  and 
immortal  than  that  which  Artemisia  gave  Mausolus. 
Mrs.  Davis  tells: 

"  Floral  offerings  came  from  all  quarters  of  our  country.  The 
orphan  asylum,  the  colleges,  the  societies,  drew  upon  their  little 
stores  to  deck  his  quiet  resting-place.  Many  thousands  passed 
weeping  by  the  bier  where  he  lay  in  state,  in  his  suit  of  con 
federate  gray,  guarded  by  the  men  who  had  fought  for  the  cause 
he  loved,  and  who  revered  his  honest,  self-denying,  devoted 
life.  His  old  comrades  in  arms  came  by  thousands  to  mingle 
their  tears  with  ours.  The  governors  of  nine  states  came  to 
bear  him  to  his  rest.  The  clergy  of  all  denominations  came  to 
pray  that  his  rest  be  peaceful,  and  to  testify  their  respect  for 
and  faith  in  him.  Fifty  thousand  people  lined  the  streets  as 
the  catafalque  passed.  Few,  if  any,  dry  eyes  looked  their  last 
upon  him  who  had  given  them  his  life's  service.  The  noble 
army  of  the  West  and  that  of  Northern  Virginia  escorted  him 
for  the  last  time,  and  the  Washington  Artillery,  now  gray-haired 
men,  were  the  guard  of  honor  to  his  bier.  The  eloquent 


328  The  Brothers'  War 

Bishops  of  Louisiana  and  Mississippi,  and  the  clergy  of  all 
denominations,  delivered  short  eulogies  upon  him  to  weeping 
thousands,  and  the  strains  of  '  Rock  of  Ages,'  once  more  bore 
up  a  great  spirit  in  its  flight  to  Him  who  gave,  sustained,  and 
took  it  again  to  himself." 


These  aptly  chosen  words  come  short  of  describing 
the  general  grief.  Nobody  can  yet  tell  all  of  it  One 
but  feebly  expresses  it  by  saying  that  when  Jefferson 
Davis  died,  broken-hearted  men,  women,  and  children 
gathered  in  funeral  assemblies  everywhere  in  that  vast 
area  from  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  on  the  north  to  the 
Mexican  border  on  the  south,  wept  over  his  bier,  and 
hung  the  air  and  heavens  with  black. 

In  1893  his  remains  were  carried  to  Richmond,  the 
dead  capital  of  the  dead  Confederate  States,  and  there 
reinterred.  The  ceremonies  were  impressive,  and 
thoroughly  in  keeping  with  those  I  have  narrated  in 
the  foregoing. 

And  in  1896  the  corner-stone  of  a  monument  to  him 
was  laid  in  Monroe  Park.  On  this  occasion  General 
Stephen  D.  Lee  delivered  an  oration  which,  as  a  monu 
ment  itself,  will  long  outlast  the  stone  one. 

Thus  has  the  overthrown  and  most  evilly  entreated 
president  of  the  Confederate  States  become,  by  some  mar 
vel  of  fortune,  far  more  than  the  proudest  conqueror.  The 
honors  which  every  one  who  "  can  above  himself  erect 
himself"  estimates  as  the  very  richest,  Mr.  Davis  has  had 
given  him  more  prodigally  than  any  other  man.  These 
honors  that  make  everything  else  shabby  in  appearance 
and  cheap,  are  the  spontaneous  offerings  of  sincere  love 
from  those  who  know  us.  Smiles,  tender  words,  prayers 
for  blessing,  tears  of  joy,  admiration,  pity,  and  sympathy, 
flowers  —  how  dear  are  any  of  these  from  a  friend, 
brother,  sister,  father,  mother,  sweetheart,  wife,  child. 


Jefferson  Davis  329 

For  almost  a  generation  all  these  tokens  were  given  the 
ex-president  by  everybody  in  the  south,  and  each  year  to 
his  death  they  were  given  in  greater  profusion.  And 
really  the  whole  south  mourned  at  his  burial.  Our  wives, 
mothers,  and  other  dear  ones  give  us  up,  and  we  give, 
them  up,  to  fight  and  perhaps  die  for  the  country.  We 
are  so  made  that  we  love  the  great  brotherhood  better 
than  we  do  ourselves.  And  so  an  offering  of  regard  from 
that  brotherhood  —  to  be  made  to  feel  that  throughout 
the  whole  of  it  one  is  recognized  as  most  worthy  of  love 
—  the  true  man  would  prize  this  above  every  other. 
Before  this  time  this  great  honor  has  been  given  only  by 
happy  ones  to  their  victors  —  to  such  as  Washington, 
Lincoln,  Grant.  But  the  south  has  begun  a  new  era. 
In  the  misery  and  ruin  of  her  subjugation  she  magnifies 
her  deposed  chief.  Much  of  the  applause  heaped  upon 
the  victor  is  selfish  and  feigned,  but  the  whole  of  that 
given  the  conquered  hero  comes  direct  and  straight  from 
the  hearts  of  his  countrymen.  It  seems,  therefore,  to 
me  that  this  decoration  of  the  conquered  hero  is  the 
crown  of  crowns  of  this  world.  It  is  Davis's  historical 
uniqueness  that  he  has  won  this  lone  crown. 

The  achievement  is  so  counter  to  common-sense  that 
it  is  not  yet  credited  nor  understood.  I  cannot  help  be 
lieving  that  when  all  the  fog  raised  by  the  brothers'  war 
has  cleared  away,  and  our  historians  tell  what  brought 
and  what  followed  that  war  with  unclouded  vision  of 
cosmic  agency,  that  Jefferson  Davis  will  be  perma 
nently  placed  high  in  the  American  temple  of  fame. 
There  he  will  be  the  world's  contemplation,  showing 
something  like  Hester  Prynne.  As  what  was  at  first 
to  her  the  branding  placard  of  guilt  turned  to  a 
badge  of  the  greatest  righteousness,  so  has  that  which 
was  unutterable  obloquy  and  disgrace  to  him  become 
unparalleled  blessing  and  glory. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE   CURSE  OF   SLAVERY   TO   THE  WHITE,  AND  ITS 
BLESSING  TO  THE   NEGRO 

THE  master  got  the  curse  and  the  negro  the 
blessing  of  slavery. 
We  set  out  by  mentioning  how  certain  ants 
have  been  injured  by  becoming  masters.  Before  this 
they  were  doubtless  the  equals  of  any  non-slaveholding 
tribe  in  self-maintenance.  Now  they  "  are  waited  upon 
and  fed  by  their  slaves,  and  when  the  slaves  are  taken 
away  the  masters  perish  miserably."  1  It  did  not  be 
come  so  bad  as  this  with  human  slaveholders ;  but  the 
consequent  disadvantage  was  very  great,  as  we  shall  now 
exemplify  with  some  detail.  We  shall  throughout  keep 
to  the  average  and  typical  man  and  woman.  And  for 
brevity's  sake,  we  shall  not  look  beyond  the  domestic 
and  agricultural  spheres,  because  when  the  reader  has 
learned  what  slavery  did  in  these,  he  can  of  himself 
easily  add  the  little  required  to  make  complete  state 
ment  of  its  entire  effect. 

In  non-slave  communities  baby  is  tended  only  by 
mother  and  near  relatives.  Though  petted  and  indulged, 
it  is  steadily  constrained  into  more  obedience  to  those 
who  tend  it.  In  due  time  the  child  is  taking  care  of 
itself  in  many  things,  and  is  also  doing  light  chores. 
Until  the  parental  roof  has  been  left  he  or  she  has  every 
day  something  to  do.  What  we  may  call  the  open-air 
home-work  is  done  by  the  boys,  and  the  inside  by  the 

1  Encyc.  Americana,  article  "  Ant." 


The  Curse  and  Blessing  of  Slavery     331 

girls.  But  in  the  old  south  baby  commenced  its  life  as 
a  slaveholder  with  a  nurse  that  it  learned  to  command 
by  inarticulate  cries  and  signs  before  it  could  talk.  And 
to  the  end,  as  grandfather  or  grandmother,  self-service  in 
many  common  things,  as  is  usual  with  all  other  people, 
was  never  learned,  but  great  expertness  in  getting  these 
things  done  by  slaves  was  learned  instead. 

I  was  only  fifteen  years  old  in  185 1,  when  I  entered  the 
sophomore  class  in  Princeton  College,  never  having  been 
out  of  the  south  before.  Of  course  much  of  my  time  at 
first  was  consumed  in  observing  and  thinking  over  many 
sights  very  novel  and  strange  to  me.  I  came  in  August. 
Soon  afterwards  I  saw  them  saving  their  Indian  -corn. 
In  the  south  we  "  pulled  "  the  fodder,  and  some  weeks 
later  we  "  pulled  "  the  corn,  leaving  the  stripped  stalks 
standing.  But  the  New  Jersey  farmers,  without  remov 
ing  the  blades  or  the  ears,  cut  the  stalks  down,  put  them 
up  in  stacks,  and  after  a  while  hauled  them  to  the  barn. 
This  was  such  a  wonder  that  I  described  it  minutely  in 
a  letter  to  my  mother.  The  next  great  surprise  that  I 
had  was  to  note  the  lady  of  the  family  and  her  daughters 
doing  everything  in  and  about  the  house,  which  I  used  to 
see  at  home  only  the  negroes  do.  They  were  marvel 
lously  more  expert  and  neat  in  despatch  than  the  negroes. 
Their  easy  and,  as  it  seemed,  effortless  way  of  getting 
through  their  daily  employment  grew  upon  me  steadily. 
What  I  intently  observed  in  those  times  and  reflected 
over  much  subsequently,  I  have  had  a  recent  experience 
to  refresh  and  enforce.  In  the  summer  of  1902  two 
ladies  from  Pennsylvania  took  a  house  in  Atlanta  next 
to  mine.  They  had  never  before  been  in  the  south.  I 
found  out  these  lonely  strangers  at  once,  and  was  soon 
seeing  much  of  them.  They  kept  no  servant.  The  two 
did  all  the  household  tasks.  The  younger  washed  the 
clothes.  This  is  something  which  but  few  city  southern 


332  The  Brothers'  War 

ladies,  except  those  whose  ancestors  were  not  slave 
holders,  have  ever  consented  to  do.  The  laundry  of 
even  the  poorest  families  in  our  towns  is  nearly  always 
the  care  of  a  negro  washerwoman.  Although  their  work 
was  every  day  punctually  done  by  my  two  new-found 
friends,  and  their  house  always  the  tidiest,  like  the  New 
Jersey  ladies  of  my  boyhood  at  Princeton,  they  were 
never  flustered  nor  worried,  but  were  always  pleasant 
and  agreeable. 

Plainly  they  lived  in  far  more  ease  and  comfort  than 
the  native  housekeepers.  There  are  two  classes  of  the 
latter.  In  one  is  the  woman  who  is  greatly  plagued  by 
the  waste,  dishonesty,  and  eye-service  of  her  negro  cook 
and  housemaid,  and  always  in  craven  fear  that  she  will 
wake  up  some  morning  to  know  that  they  have  taken 
French  leave.  In  the  other  class  is  the  woman  who  often 
must,  with  the  help  only  of  her  children,  do  everything 
at  home.  What  a  laborious,  fatiguing  botch  they  make 
of  it !  Their  day-dream  all  the  year  round  is  to  find 
that  needle  in  a  haystack,  a  servant  who  will  take  no 
more  than  the  established  holidays  and  always  come  in 
time  to  get  breakfast. 

I  sorrow  for  these  present  housekeepers  of  the  south. 
They  all  know  by  heart  and  often  retell  to  their  children 
the  tales  of  their  mothers  and  grandmothers,  —  how, 
early  in  the  morning,  the  affectionate  and  faithful  nurses 
stole  the  children  out  of  the  room,  without  waking  papa 
and  mamma ;  how  the  cook  and  the  waiters,  not  super 
intended,  had  the  best  of  breakfasts  ready  at  the  right 
time ;  how  at  this  meal  there  was  happy  reunion  of  the 
family  beginning  a  new  day,  the  children  bathed  and  in 
their  clean  clothes,  each  one  pretty  as  a  picture  and 
sweet  as  a  pink ;  and  how  all  the  affairs  of  the  household 
under  the  magic  touch  of  angel  servants  were  fitly  de 
spatched  without  trouble  or  worry  to  mamma,  until  the 


The  Curse  and  Blessing  of  Slavery    333 

day  ended  by  the  nurses'  bathing  the  little  tots  again, 
putting  them  to  bed,  and  mammy's  getting  them  to  sleep 
by  telling  "  The  Tar  Baby  "  or  some  other  adventure  of 
Brer  Rabbit  over  and  over  as  often  as  sleepily  called  for, 
or  by  singing  sweet  lullabies.  With  this  vision  of  a  real 
fairyland  in  which  their  ancestors  lived  not  so  very  long 
ago,  how  can  any  one  of  these  mothers  of  the  new  south 
contentedly  make  herself  the  only  nurse,  cook,  and  house 
servant  of  her  family?  For  many  a  year  yet,  to  do  every 
day  the  drudgery  of  all  three  will  be  the  extreme  of  dis 
comfort  and  sore  trial  to  her.  We  must  give  her  loving 
words  and  sympathy  without  ceasing,  and  trust  her  to 
the  slow  but  sure  healing  of  inevitable  necessity. 

This  lamentable  condition  of  our  southern  woman  is 
due,  as  plainly  appears,  to  the  miseducation  given  their 
ancestors  by  slavery.  Slavery  went  forty  years  ago ; 
but  it  left  the  negro,  and  the  dependence  of  these  women 
upon  her  as  their  only  servant.  It  is  indispensable  that 
they  cut  loose  completely  from  this  dependence.  Their 
resolve  should  be  firm  and  unwavering  that  they  will 
learn  to  minister  to  themselves  and  their  dear  ones,  and 
teach  the  blessed  art  to  their  children ;  as  their  northern 
sisters  have  always  done.  I  would  have  them  here  re 
ceptively  contemplate,  as  a  part  of  the  new  lesson  which 
they  must  learn,  this  true  and  enchanting  picture  of  a 
New  England  home: 

u  There  are  no  servants  in  the  house,  but  the  lady  in  the 
snowy  cap,  with  the  spectacles,  who  sits  sewing  every  afternoon 
among  her  daughters,  as  if  nothing  had  ever  been  done,  or  were 
to  be  done,  —  she  and  her  girls,  in  some  long-forgotten  fore 
part  of  the  day  did  up  the  work,  and  for  the  rest  of  the  time, 
probably,  at  all  hours  when  you  would  see  them,  it  is  done  up. 
The  old  kitchen  floor  never  seems  stained  or  spotted  ;  the  tables, 
the  chairs,  and  the  various  cooking  utensils  never  seem  deranged 
or  disordered ;  though  three  and  sometimes  four  meals  a  day 


334  The  Brothers'  War 

are  got  there,  though  the  family  washing  and  ironing  is  there 
performed,  and  though  pounds  of  butter  and  cheese  are  in  some 
silent  and  mysterious  manner  there  brought  into  existence."  1 

Of  course  it  is  not  to  be  demanded  that  the  southern 
woman  exactly  reproduce  the  New  England  system  of 
fifty  years  ago  just  described  by  Mrs.  Stowe.  But  she 
must  learn  to  be  entirely  independent  of  servants  in 
the  era  of  co-operation,  electric  dish-washers,  and  other 
helping  machines,  about  to  begin. 

Let  us  see  how  it  has  been  with  the  fathers  and  boys. 
The  planting  of  the  old  south  required  proportionally 
less  cash  outlay  annually  than  any  common  business 
that  I  now  call  to  mind.  The  owner  of  750  acres  of 
land  —  an  ordinary  plantation  —  worth  $6,000,  thirty 
slaves  worth  $18,000,  and  mules  and  live-stock 
worth  $1,000,  had  usually  but  five  considerable  items 
of  expense :  the  overseer  with  his  family  was  "  found  " 
—  to  use  the  then  current  vogue  —  and  paid  not  more 
than  $150  yearly  wages;  a  few  sacks  of  salt  to  save 
the  pork  —  a  little  to  be  given  the  live  animals  occasion 
ally;  a  few  bars  of  iron  for  the  plantation  blacksmith 
shop  —  the  latter  being  furnished  with  bellows,  anvil, 
tongs,  screwplate,  vise,  and  a  few  other  tools,  all  hardly 
amounting  to  $100  investment;  sometimes  coarse  cot 
ton  and  woollen  cloth  for  the  clothes  of  the  negroes, 
made  by  the  slave-women  tailors  (even  in  my  day  this 
cloth  was,  on  many  plantations,  spun  and  wove  at  home 
from  the  cotton  and  wool  grown  by  the  owner) ;  and 
the  fifth  item  was  a  moderate  bill  of  the  family  physician 
for  attendance  upon  the  sick  slaves.  The  whole  would 
seldom  amount  to  $350;  and  remember  the  income 
yielding  capital  was  $25,000.  This  planter  paid  no 
wages  for  his  labor  ;  he  bred  his  slaves,  and  all  animals 

l  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  and  Key,  vol.  i.  206  (Riverside  ed.). 


The  Curse  and  Blessing  of  Slavery    335 

serving  for  work,  food,  or  pleasure ;  —  in  short,  the 
establishment  was  self-supporting.  The  good  manager 
sold  every  year  more  than  enough  of  meat,  grain,  and 
other  produce  to  pay  the  expense  itemed  a  moment 
ago,  and  so  the  $1,200  from  the  sale  of  his  crop  of 
thirty  bales  of  cotton  was  often  net  income. 

The  natural  increase  of  slaves  which  I  have  explained 
above  operated  in  many  cases  to  encourage  wastefulness 
and  idleness.  But  even  in  the  majority  of  these  cases 
the  estates  more  than  held  their  own. 

Let  us  illustrate  the  change  wrought  by  emancipation 
by  having  you  to  contemplate  a  small  middle  Georgia 
farmer  of  to-day.  If  he  employ  but  four  hands  to  his 
two  plows,  he  will,  in  wages,  fertilizers  that  have  come 
into  general  use  since  the  war,  purchase  of  meat,  corn, 
and  other  supplies  that  the  slaves  used  to  produce, 
necessarily  lay  out  annually  more  than  did  the  planter 
making  thirty  bales  as  we  mentioned  above.  If  this 
small  farmer  makes  twenty  bales  —  which  is  far  above 
the  average  —  worth,  if  the  price  be,  say,  eight  cents, 
$800  —  more  than  half  of  it  will  be  needed  to  cover 
his  outlay.  It  is  to  be  emphasized  that  as  a  general 
rule  this  farmer  and  his  boys  have  not  yet  been  trained 
to  work  as  steadily  and  diligently  as  their  circumstances 
demand  of  them.  As  the  women  slight  in  the  house 
what  they  regard  as  fit  employment  only  of  negroes,  so 
the  men  do  the  same  in  the  farm.  The  whites  of  both 
sexes  cling  to  the  negro  instead  of  making  good  workers 
of  themselves. 

In  the  old  south  money  grew  of  itself.  Now  constant 
alertness  is  needed  to  see  that  every  dollar  laid  out 
comes  back,  if  not  with  addition,  at  least  without  loss. 
To  keep  from  falling  behind,  the  farmer  must  have  a 
very  much  higher  degree  of  mercantile  capacity  than  he 
could  ever  acquire  under  the  old  system.  And  he  and 


336  The  Brothers'  War 

his  boys  ought  to  supplant  much  of  the  negro  labor  he 
now  employs  by  their  own  systematic  and  steady  work. 
All  these  necessary  lessons  are  very  hard  to  learn, 
because  to  do  that  we  must  first  unlearn  widely  differ 
ent  ones. 

This  examination  shows  that  the  men  of  the  new 
south  are  almost  as  inadequate  to  the  demands  of  the 
day  as  we  found  the  women  to  be. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  our  women  and  men  have 
not  improved  at  all  in  their  respective  spheres  in  the 
last  forty  years.  I  believe  that  when  due  allowance  is 
made  for  the  unavoidable  effect  upon  them  of  the  sys 
tem  into  which  they  were  all  born  it  must  be  conceded 
that  the  little  improvement  which  they  have  made  is 
greater  than  what  could  have  been  reasonably  expected. 
But  I  see  clearly  that  the  habits  of  thought  and  the 
modes  of  house  and  farm  economy,  bred  first  from  our 
contact  with  the  negro  slave  and  then  with  the  negro 
freedman,  are  yet  an  oppressively  heavy  load  upon  our 
section. 

I  have  now  to  do  with  a  still  greater  evil  as  part  of 
the  curse  of  slavery  to  the  southern  whites ;  which  is, 
that  it  prevented  the  normal  rise  in  the  section  of  a 
white  labor  class.  If  one  but  look  steadily  at  develop 
ments,  either  now  in  progress  or  surely  impending,  in 
Germany,  France,  England,  the  English  colonies,  and 
the  United  States  he  sees  that  the  workers  most  of  all 
are  influencing  the  other  classes  to  pursue  the  best 
policy  in  all  departments  of  government.  The  truth  is 
that  in  every  stage  of  society  there  is  the  leading  energy 
of  some  particular  class.  Let  me  make  you  reflect 
over  a  few  well-known  examples.  In  their  unremitted 
struggle  with  the  patricians,  the  plebeians  of  Rome 
gradually  climbed  out  of  their  low  estate  into  complete 
political,  civil,  and  social  equality  with  the  former  who 


The  Curse  and  Blessing  of  Slavery    337 

had  long  been  the  constituency  of  the  so-called  republic. 
Some  centuries  later  a  tacit  combination  of  those 
belonging  to  each  division  of  the  middle  class  dried  all 
the  fountains  of  civil  disorder  and  made  domestic  peace 
sure  and  permanent  by  establishing  the  Roman  empire. 
Much  later  employers  of  the  free  labor  which  had 
displaced  slavery  made  European  towns  democratic, 
and  set  them  in  such  strong  array  against  the  feudal 
barons  that  the  latter  were  at  last  restrained  from  plun 
dering  the  new  industry.  The  American  revolution 
and  the  French  revolution  were  each  mainly  middle- 
class  movements.  By  them  the  middle  class  cleared 
out  of  its  way,  as  far  as  it  could,  distinctions  of  birth, 
title,  rank,  and  all  other  special  personal  privileges.  But, 
unawares,  it  put  in  the  place  of  the  old  hereditary  lords 
and  monopolists,  known  as  such  by  everybody,  a 
nobility  in  disguise.  The  members  of  this  nobility 
make  no  claim  to  our  labor  or  substance  by  reason  of 
their  having  had  such  and  such  fathers  or  having  re 
ceived  such  and  such  grants  or  patents  to  themselves  as 
natural  persons.  They  pose  as  government  agents  in 
such  functions  as  the  transportation  and  monetary,  of 
which  efficient,  cheap,  and  impartial  performance  is  vital 
to  the  general  welfare.  Clandestinely  they  have  had 
the  law  of  the  land  made  or  interpreted  and  the  prac 
tice  of  government  shaped  each  as  they  want  it;  and 
sitting  in  their  masks  wherever  these  sovereign  powers 
must  be  invoked  by  producer  or  worker,  it  is  these 
usurpers  and  not  the  legitimate  public  authorities  who 
must  be  applied  to  and  given,  not  the  just  cost  of  the 
service,  but  the  supreme  extortion  possible.  These 
masked  rulers  toll  our  wages,  profits,  and  property  as 
insidiously  and  deeply  as  does  indirect  compared  with 
direct  taxation.  In  fact  they  are  government  licensees, 
levying  upon  us  for  their  own  benefit  all  the  indirect 


338  The  Brothers'  War 

taxation  that  we  can  bear.  Some  —  I  may  say,  a  large 
number  —  of  middle-class  property  owners  and  pro 
ducers  are  heart  and  soul  in  strong  and  strengthening 
resistance  now  forming  against  the  tyrants  they  have 
unwittingly  set  up.  But  the  initiative  and  most  effec 
tive  elements  of  this  benign  uprising  do  not  come  from 
the  middle  class.  It  was  the  workers  who  excited  and 
kept  at  its  height  the  righteous  indignation  of  the 
country  that  shamed  the  coal-trust  into  decency.  It  is 
the  workers  who  are  the  most  influential  of  all  that 
strive  to  arm  us  with  those  plutocracy-destroying  weap 
ons,  direct  nomination  and  direct  legislation ;  and  of  all 
who  demand  that  the  railroads  pay  just  taxes ;  of  all  who 
would  lay  the  axe  at  the  root  of  public  corruption  by 
having  government  resume  its  powers  and  do  every  one 
of  its  duties  without  favor  or  prejudice  to  a  single 
human  being.  It  is  clear  that  the  laborers  are  gathering 
all  the  anti-monopoly  interests  and  classes  of  society  to 
their  banner,  and  that  from  the  steady  and  increasing 
impulsion  of  these  laborers,  in  unions  and  political  cam 
paigns,  industrial  democracy  will  at  last  come  in,  to 
open  the  millennium  by  keeping  every  man,  woman,  and 
child,  except  the  wilfully  idle  and  criminal,  permanently 
supplied  with  necessaries  and  comforts. 

Who  are  the  laborers  that  are  both  to  spur  and  lead 
us  forward  in  this  great  course?  Why,  the  white  labor 
ers,  whose  interests  and  whose  qualifications  to  share  in 
governments  are  the  same  as  those  of  the  rest  of  us ; 
who  are  really  part  and  parcel  of  the  body  politic  and 
whose  sons  and  daughters  can  be  married  by  our  sons 
and  daughters  without  social  degradation  to  themselves 
or  degeneration  of  the  proud  Caucasian  stock  in  their 
children.  The  negroes  cannot  do  the  great  work  we 
are  contemplating.  They  are  strangers  in  blood.  They 
are  as  yet  far  too  low  in  development.  It  is  idle  to 


The  Curse  and  Blessing  of  Slavery    339 

think  of  making  these  aliens,  whose  highest  interests  are 
irreconcilably  antagonistic  to  ours  and  our  children's, 
allies  of  the  white  laborers  —  a  point  which  will  be 
treated  at  large  in  later  chapters. 

To  bring  out  the  situation  more  clearly,  suppose  that 
instead  of  the  eight  millions  of  negroes  now  in  the  south 
we  had  eight  millions  of  native  white  workers  and  no 
negroes  at  all.  Would  it  not  be  far  better  for  us  of  the 
section?  Would  it  not  be  far  better  for  the  anti-mono 
poly  cause  in  the  north?  Ought  there  not  to  be  a  real 
labor  party  in  the  south  instead  of  what  we  now  see? 
The  so-called  labor  party  of  the  south  has  a  large  per 
centage  of  leaders  whose  chief  activity  is  to  win  posi 
tions  in  the  unions,  in  agitation,  in  the  city  and  State 
government  wherein  they  can  serve  themselves  by  de 
livering  the  labor  vote  to  corporate  interests,  or  doing 
the  latter  legislative  or  official  favor  —  a  sure  symptom 
that  the  movement  is  as  yet  merely  incipient.  In  no 
northern  State  have  the  railroads  and  allied  corporations 
such  complete  command  of  nominative,  appointive,  and 
legislative  machinery  as  in  Georgia ;  and  it  seems  to  me 
that  Georgia  is  but  fairly  representative  of  all  the  south 
except  South  Carolina,  which  has  advanced  further  in 
direct  nomination  than  any  other  one  of  the  United 
States.  In  many  places  the  people  of  the  north  are 
successfully  rising  against  the  corporation  oligarchs. 
In  New  York  and  Michigan  the  latter  have  been  made 
to  pay  some  of  the  taxes  which  they  had  always  been 
dodging.  In  a  recent  Boston  referendum  the  street 
railroad,  which  for  years  had  ridden  roughshod  over  the 
public  at  will,  was  snowed  under,  although  it  had  the 
machine,  all  the  five  daily  papers  but  one,  and  the  out 
side  of  that,  fighting  for  it  with  might  and  main.  Los 
Angeles,  followed  by  three  or  four  other  towns,  has  just 
made  a  beginning  with  the  Recall.  Oregon  has  direct 


340  The  Brothers'  War 

legislation.  Illinois  has  pushed  ahead  with  both  direct 
nomination  and  direct  legislation.  Cities  here  and  there, 
in  very  grateful  contrast  with  the  apathy  prevalent  in 
this  section,  have  awakened  to  the  importance  of  rightly 
guarding  the  common  property  in  public-service 
franchises.  I  could  cite  many  other  examples  which 
show  that  the  anti-plutocratic  tide  gathers  force  all  over 
the  north.  Why  is  it  that  there  is  this  blessed  insurgence 
against  corporation  misrule  there,  and  hardly  a  trace  of 
it  here  ?  Simply  because  the  north  has  and  the  south 
has  not  the  motor  of  insurgence  —  a  real  labor  class, 
growing  steadily  in  zeal  and  organization,  and  rapidly 
increasing  in  numbers. 

That  a  southern  State  has  no  real  labor  class  with 
potent  influence  upon  the  public,  puts  it  as  far  behind 
the  most  enlightened  communities  in  political  and  gov 
ernmental  condition,  as  it  was  with  its  slaves  behind 
them  in  productive  condition.  Such  a  State  lacks  a 
most  essential  organ  of  the  highest  types  of  democracy.1 

To  sum  up :  Slavery  disqualified  the  white  men  and 
women  of  the  south  for  the  domestic  and  business  man 
agement  proper  to  this  era ;  and  ever  since  emancipation 
the  presence  of  a  large  number  of  negroes  available  for 
labor  in  house  and  on  the  farm,  and  preventing  the 
coming  in  of  any  other  labor,  has  powerfully  helped  both 
races  in  their  efforts  naturally  made  to  retain  the  familiar 
ways  of  the  old  system.  Thus  the  south  has  been  sadly 
retarded  in  her  due  economical  rehabilitation.  In  the 
second  place,  it  has  kept  the  political  influence  of  labor 
at  the  minimum,  and  consequently  sent  her  backwards  in 

1  Says  John  Mitchell :  "  The  Southern  States,  which  have  made  rapid 
progress,  especially  in  cotton  manufacturing,  have,  as  a  general  rule,  not 
responded  to  the  demand  for  a  shorter  working-day  —  the  south  lacking 
effective  labor  organizations  to  compel  such  legislation."  (Organized 
Labor,  122.)  He  might  have  said  the  same  as  to  the  desired  prohibition 
of  child  labor. 


The  Curse  and  Blessing  of  Slavery     341 

true  democracy,  while  England,  the  English  colonies,  and 
the  northern  States,  are  slowly  but  surely  going  forward. 

These  are  the  main  things.  Let  me  in  briefest  men 
tion  suggest  some  of  their  results,  which,  at  first  blush, 
seem  to  be  independent. 

Slavery  engendered  among  the  whites  a  disrespect  for 
labor,  which,  although  now  at  last  dying  out,  is  still  of 
hurtful  influence. 

As  negroes  were  always  and  everywhere  in  number 
sufficient  to  do  every  task  of  labor,  there  was  but  little 
demand  for  labor-saving  machines  and  methods  —  a 
fact  which  prevented  the  southern  whites  from  develop 
ing  the  inventive  faculty  equally  with  their  northern 
brothers.  We  all  are  beginning  to  see  that,  except  in 
much  of  agriculture  and  other  activities  in  which  the 
process  is  that  of  nature  and  not  of  art,  the  future  of 
industry  belongs  more  and  more  to  the  constantly 
improving  machine. 

Think  of  such  things  as  these  in  the  brood  of  evils 
brought  forth  by  slavery ;  —  agriculture  primitive  or 
superannuated  in  many  particulars ;  our  entire  structure 
of  investment,  production,  and  occupation  bottomed 
upon  slaves,  property  in  which  could  be,  and  was, 
totally  destroyed  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen ;  immigration 
both  from  Europe  and  the  north  repelled ;  slowness  in 
exploiting  our  water  power  and  mines ;  inferior  common 
schools,  and  lack  of  town-meeting  government  due  to 
the  sparseness  of  the  population  and  their  roving  habits 
which  were  incident  to  the  plantation  system.  I  have 
given  some  consideration  to  these  in  the  "  Old  and  New 
South,"  and  I  refer  you  to  that.1 

Of  course  had  there  never  been  any  negro  slavery  in 
America  we  should  have  escaped  the  brothers'  war,  its 
spilling  of  blood,  its  waste  of  wealth,  and  the  long  sick- 

1  Infra,  pp.  431-438. 


342  The  Brothers'  War 

ness  of  the  section  unto  death  which  has  ensued.  And 
to-day  in  solid  prosperity,  institutions,  government,  and 
progressiveness  in  everything  good,  the  section  would 
be  abreast  of  the  other.  Nay,  her  better  climate,  her 
agricultural  products  —  especially  her  cotton,  which  she 
would  have  learned  to  make  with  white  labor  —  these 
and  other  resources  would,  I  fully  believe,  have  by  this 
time  pushed  her  far  into  the  lead.  As  it  actually  is,  she 
is  far,  far  behind.  She  has  been  sorely  scourged,  not  for 
any  moral  guilt. 

"  Some  innocents  'scape  not  the  thunderbolt." 

It  was  because  she  did  that  which  the  wisest  and  best 
had  done  —  the  Greeks  who  gave  the  world  culture  and 
democracy,  the  Jews  who  gave  it  religion,  the  Romans 
who  gave  it  law  and  civil  institutions.  She  really  did 
far  better  than  they  did.  She  did  not  enslave  the  free. 
She  merely  took  some  of  the  only  inveterate  slaves 
upon  earth  out  of  lawless  slavery,  in  which  they  would 
have  otherwise  remained  indefinitely  without  recognition 
of  the  dearest  human  rights,  and  placed  them  in  a  far 
other  slavery  which  was  for  them  an  unparalleled  rise 
in  liberty  and  well-being;  which  was,  as  becomes  more 
and  more  probable  with  time,  the  only  opportunity  by 
which  any  considerable  portion  of  the  negro  race  can 
ever  evolve  upward  into  the  capability  of  enlightened 
self-government.  In  doing  this  she  unconsciously  antag 
onized  the  purposes  of  the  iron-hearted  powers  guard 
ing  the  American  union,  and  when  the  critical  moment 
of  that  union  came,  they  dashed  her  to  pieces. 

It  will  be  many  a  year  before  the  pathos  of  southern 
history  can  be  fully  told.  I  must  satisfy  myself  here  by 
saying  only  that  the  curse  of  African  slavery  to  her  has 
been  of  magnitude  and  weight  incredible,  and  that  one 
cannot  yet  be  sure  when  it  will  end. 


The  Curse  and  Blessing  of  Slavery     343 

The  title  of  the  chapter  demands  that  I  now  tell  you 
of  the  blessing  of  African  slavery  in  the  United  States 
to  the  negro.  Of  course  there  are  many  who  have  been 
born  into  the  unqualified  condemnation  of  every  form 
of  slavery,  which  was  resolutely  preached  for  years  all 
over  the  north  by  conscientious  men  and  women  of 
great  ability  and  influence.  Such  will  exclaim  against 
me,  and  perhaps  some  of  them  will  not  even  read  the 
rest  of  the  chapter.  But  it  is  my  note,  which  becomes 
surer  and  more  confident  every  year,  that  the  great  body 
of  men  and  women  shrink  from  every  over-positively 
urged  dogma.  I  have  already  mentioned  those  who 
are  trying  to  curb  the  evils  of  drink.  All  the  while  an 
increasing  majority  of  them  recognize  that  to  assert 
that  any  use  of  liquor,  wine,  or  beer  is  a  moral  wrong, 
as  do  a  noisy  few  in  season  and  out  of  season,  is  too 
extreme  to  be  true  or  even  politic.  The  ultra  democrat 
will  zealously  justify  the  assassination  of  Julius  Caesar, 
while  the  wisest  friends  of  the  people  become  more 
firmly  convinced  every  century  that  the  empire  which 
Caesar  founded  was,  by  reason  of  the  circumstances,  the 
best  possible  government  for  the  Romans  of  that  and 
the  succeeding  times ;  —  the  surest  guaranty  that  the 
main  benefits  of  ancient  civilization  should  be  preserved 
for  the  human  race.  And  as  there  has  now  and  then 
been  something  of  substantial  good  in  even  absolute 
government,  there  has  also  been  good  to  the  slave  in 
his  slavery.  Surely  it  was  an  improvement  of  the  cap 
tor  and  a  bettering  of  the  condition  of  the  prisoner  of 
war,  not  to  barbecue  the  latter,  as  was  the  custom  for 
ages,  but  to  have  him  work  for  a  master.  Perhaps 
the  fabulist  ^Esop  had  been  a  slave.  Terence,  a  great 
Roman  dramatist,  surely  had  been.  Horace's  father 
had  been  one.  It  may  well  be  true  that  it  was  slavery 
that  gave  each  one  of  these  three  immortals  his  oppor- 


344  The  Brothers'  War 

tunity.  The  more  familiar  you  become  with  ancient 
history  the  larger  you  estimate  the  number  of  those  to 
have  been  who  as  slaves  got  many  of  the  benefits  of 
Greek  and  Roman  civilization,  which  benefits  they  after 
wards  transmitted  to  free  descendants.  I  need  not  repeat 
what  I  have  already  told  —  how  the  negroes  in  the  mass 
were  advantaged  by  transfer  from  slavery  in  Africa  to 
slavery  in  America.  But  do  let  me  inquire,  would 
Professor  DuBois  have  ever  outstripped  all  the  white 
children  in  a  New  England  school,  graduated  creditably 
from  two  American  universities,  studied  at  the  univer 
sity  of  Berlin,  acquired  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts 
and  then  that  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy,  been  made  in 
sociology  fellow  of  Harvard  and  assistant  of  the  univer 
sity  of  Pennsylvania,  become  president  of  the  American 
Negro  Academy,  got  the  professorship  of  economics 
and  history  in  Atlanta  University,  and  pushed  forward 
as  an  author  into  prominent  and  most  respectable  place ; 
all  before  he  was  thirty-six  years  old  —  would  Professor 
DuBois  have  surpassed  this  brilliant  career,  if  an  "  evil, 
Dutch  trader  "  had  not  seized  his  "  grandfather's  grand 
mother  .  .  .  two  centuries  ago"?1  If  the  transfer  just 
mentioned  had  not  been  made  what  would  now  be  Fred 
Douglass,  Booker  Washington,  Richard  R.  Wright,  Pro 
fessor  DuBois,  Bishop  Turner,  and  other  great  negroes, 
their  good  works  and  glory?  Would  Hayti  have  ar 
ranged  for  some  of  its  young  men  to  be  trained  in  farming 
at  Tuskegee?  more  especially  do  I  ask,  would  negroes 
educated  at  Tuskegee  be  now  teaching  the  missionaries 
how  to  christianize  the  Africans  of  Togoland?  Who 
would  now  be  arousing  people  north  and  south  in  behalf 
of  the  race?  and  where  could  nine  millions  of  blacks  be 
found — or  even  half  a  million — as  far  above  the  African 
level  of  to-day  as  ours? 

1  The  Souls  of  Black  Folk,  254. 


The  Curse  and  Blessing  of  Slavery    345 

My  conclusion  is  that  the  whites  and  the  negroes  of  the 
south  ought  to  learn  wisdom  and  interchange  their  holi 
days  and  great  annual  rejoicings.  The  former  ought  to 
keep  the  anniversary  of  the  emancipation  proclamation 
as  the  southern  4th  of  July,  and  the  blacks  ought  to 
observe  that  day  by  wearing  mourning  and  eating  bitter 
herbs.  Further,  the  negroes  of  America  ought  to  cele 
brate  the  day  when  the  Dutch  ship  landed  the  first 
Africans  at  Jamestown  as  the  dawn  of  their  hopes  as  a 
people. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  BROTHERS  ON  EACH  SIDE  WERE  TRUE  PATRIOTS 
AND  MORALLY  RIGHT  — BOTH  THOSE  WHO  FOUGHT 
FOR  THE  UNION,  AND  THOSE  WHO  FOUGHT  FOR 
THE  CONFEDERACY 

THE  proposition  of  the  heading  has  really  been 
demonstrated  in  the  foregoing  chapters.     I  feel 
that  the  demonstration  should  have  impressive 
enforcement.    It  will  surely  be  for  the  great  good  of  our 
country  if  the  brothers  of  each  section  be  truly  con 
vinced  that  those  of  the  other  were  morally  right  in  the 
slavery  struggle  from  beginning  to  end. 

Let  us  begin  by  noting  the  ambiguity  of  the  word 
"  right."  Something  may  be  right  in  expediency,  policy, 
or  reason,  and  yet  wrong  ethically.  Likewise  something 
may  be  a  mistake  and  wrong  in  policy  while  it  is  right 
in  morals.  General  Sherman  was  a  conspicuous  exam 
ple  of  the  almost  universal  proneness  to  confound  right 
in  the  sense  first  mentioned  above  with  it  in  the  other. 
The  two  are  widely  different  —  not  merely  in  degree,  but 
in  kind.  That  which  is  right  or  wrong  in  expediency 
is  decided  by  the  understanding  —  by  the  head  ;  that 
which  is  right  or  wrong  ethically  is  decided  for  every 
human  being  by  his  own  conscience  —  by  his  heart.  To 
try  with  all  my  might  to  do  a  particular  thing  may  be 
my  highest  moral  duty ;  to  try  with  all  your  might  to 
keep  me  from  doing  it  may  be  yours.  The  brothers 
who  set  up  the  southern  confederacy  and  defended  it, 
the  brothers  who  warred  upon  it  and  overturned  it  — 


Brothers  on  each  Side  True  Patriots     347 

they  were  on  each  side  sublimely  conscientious ;  for 
every  one  —  to  use  the  high  word  of  Lincoln  —  was  do 
ing  the  right  as  God  gave  him  to  see  it.  No  people  ever 
waged  a  war  with  deeper  and  more  solemn  conviction  of 
duty  than  did  our  northern  brothers.  Rome,  rising  un- 
vanquished  from  every  great  victory  of  Hannibal,  much 
as  she  has  been  most  justly  lauded  by  foremost  historians, 
fell  behind  them  in  supreme  effort  —  in  undaunted  per 
severance  in  spite  of  disaster  after  disaster  until  the  diffi 
culty  insuperable  was  overcome.  We  of  the  south 
should  be  proud  of  this  unparalleled  achievement  of  our 
brothers.  Most  of  all  should  we  be  proud  of  the  com 
plete  self-abnegation  and  unwavering  obedience  to  con 
science  with  which  they  waded  a  sea  of  blood,  for  the 
welfare  of  future  generations  rather  than  their  own.  I 
am  glad  to  observe  that  many  who  most  affectionately 
remember  the  lost  cause  have  come  at  last  to  concede 
without  qualification  that  the  restoration  of  the  union  by 
force  of  arms  was  morally  right.  But  I  note  that  as  yet 
only  a  few  at  the  north — men  like  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott,  Mr. 
Charles  F.  Adams,  and  Professor  Wendell  —  have  learned 
that  the  south,  in  all  that  she  did  in  "  The  Great  War," l 
was  likewise  morally  right.  To  show  that  the  confeder 
ates  were  exemplary  champions  of  a  legitimate  govern 
ment,  I  need  not  repeat  what  I  have  said  above  when  I 
told  how  southern  nationalization  had  given  them  a 
country  of  their  own  as  dear  to  them  and  as  much 
mistress  of  their  consciences  as  the  union  was  to  the 
northern  people.  If  there  are  those  who  cannot  bring 
themselves  to  allow  the  all-potent  coercion  of  the  na 
tionalization  mentioned  as  justification,  and  who  still 

1  In  an  address  mentioned  in  the  next  footnote  Major  Joseph  B.  Gum 
ming  rightly  insists  that  this  is  the  proper  name  for  what  is  called  "  the 
American  Civil  War"  with  some  show  of  justification,  and  "the  war  of 
rebellion"  without  any  justification  whatever. 


The  Brothers'  War 

think  of  us  as  traitors  and  rebels,  I  beg  them  to  give 
due  consideration  to  the  feelings  with  which  the  south 
erner  now  looks  back  upon  his  life  in  the  confederate 
army.  I  call  a  most  convincing  witness  to  testify.  I  do 
not  know  a  man  who  ever  followed  what  his  conscience 
pronounced  right  more  faithfully,  who  was  truer  to  the 
better  traditions  of  the  old  south,  and  who  was  a  more 
devoted  soldier  in  the  brothers'  war,  nor  do  I  know 
another  who  now  draws  from  every  class  in  his  com 
munity  more  respect  for  real  manhood  and  honesty. 
All  who  know  him  will  believe  his  word  against  an  ora 
cle  or  an  angel.  Here  is  what  he  said  thirty-seven  years 
after  the  close  of  the  war : 

"  That  period  of  my  life  is  the  one  with  which  I  am  the  most 
nearly  satisfied.  A  persistent,  steady  effort  to  do  my  duty  —  an 
effort  persevered  in  in  the  midst  of  privation,  hardship,  and  danger. 
If  ever  I  was  unselfish,  it  was  then.  If  ever  I  was  capable  of  self- 
denial,  it  was  then.  If  ever  I  was  able  to  trample  on  self-indul 
gence,  it  was  then.  If  ever  I  was  strong  to  make  sacrifices,  even 
unto  death,  it  was  in  those  days ;  and  if  I  were  called  upon  to 
say  on  the  peril  of  my  soul,  when  it  lived  its  highest  life,  when 
it  was  least  faithless  to  true  manhood,  when  it  was  most  loyal  to 
the  best  part  of  man's  nature,  I  would  answer,  4  It  was  when  I 
followed  a  battle-torn  flag  through  its  shifting  fortune  of  victory 
and  defeat.' 

My  comrades,  how  easy  it  is  to  name  the  word  that  charac 
terizes  and  strikes  the  keynote  of  that  time  and  should  explain 
our  pride  to  all  the  world  —  self  sacrifice  —  that  spirit  and  that 
conduct  which  raise  poor  mortals  nearest  to  divinity.  Oh,  God 
in  heaven,  what  sacrifices  did  we  not  make  !  How  our  very 
heart  strings  were  torn  as  we  turned  from  our  home,  our  parents, 
our  children  !  ...  How  poor  we  were  !  How  ragged  !  How 
hungry !  When  I  recall  the  light-heartedness,  the  courage,  the 
cheerfulness,  the  fidelity  to  duty  which  lived  and  flourished  under 
such  circumstances,  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart  I  thank  God 
that  for  four  long  years  I  wore,  if  not  brilliantly,  at  least  faithfully 


Brothers  on  each  Side  True  Patriots   349 

and  steadfastly,  in  camp  and  bivouac,  in  advance  and  retreat, 
on  the  march  and  on  the  battlefield,  the  uniform  of  a  confeder 
ate  soldier."  1 

The  passage  just  quoted  most  truly  expresses  the 
feelings  with  which  the  southern  people  stood  by  their 
catise  and  now  look  back  upon  the  support  which  they 
gave  it.  In  this  matter  their  word  will  be  taken  by 
everybody.  Their  actions  before,  during,  and  ever  since 
the  war  speak  louder  than  their  word.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  in  founding  the  Confederate  States  and 
waging  the  resulting  war  everything  they  did  was  coun 
selled  by  the  most  tender  and  enlightened  conscience. 
Bear  in  mind  how  they  clung  to  Davis  and  how  they 
stirl  remember  him,  winning  the  precious  eulogy 

"  —  he  that  can  endure 
To  follow  with  allegiance  a  fallen  lord 
Does  conquer  him  that  did  his  master  conquer, 
And  earns  a  place  i'  the  story." 

Bear  in  mind  how  truly  they  keep  Memorial  Day.  The 
love  which  the  south  gives  Davis  and  her  dead  soldiers 
protests  to  all  the  earth  and  heaven  the  righteousness  of 
her  lost  cause.  Calmly,  serenely,  confidently  she  awaits 
future  judgment  upon  her  love.  It  needs  that  all  the 
north  appreciate  this  fealty  as  the  height  of  heaven- 
climbing  virtue. 

The  real  soldiers  of  each  section — those  who  —  to  use 
a  confederate  saying  —  were  "  in  the  bullet  department," 
and  fighting  every  day,  learned  great  regard  for  their  foes ; 
and  when  the  war  ended  they  became  at  once  advocates  of 
speedy  reconciliation.  And  the  non-combatants  on  each 
side  felt  far  less  resentment  towards  the  actual  fighters 

1  Address  of  Major  Joseph  B.  Gumming,  entitled  "  The  Great  War," 
before  Camp  435  of  United  Confederate  Veterans,  Augusta,  Ga.,  Memo 
rial  Day,  1902. 


3 50  The  Brothers'  War 

of  the  other  than  they  did  towards  its  political  leaders. 
It  is  a  common  error  to  overrate  the  accomplishment  of 
potent  and  ambitious  men  in  tumultuous  times.  As  the 
world  long  ascribed  meteorological  phenomena  to  the 
mutations  of  the  moon,  conspicuous  above  all  things 
else  as  the  apparent  cause,  so  most  people  now  believe 
that  revolutions  are  caused  by  the  men  who  appear  to 
be  leading.  We  have  explained  above  that  the  only 
effective  leaders  —  even  of  revolutions  —  are  those  who 
are  the  most  completely  led  by  the  people.  To  lead,  the 
leader  must  keep  on  the  tide  and  let  it  lead  him.  If  he 
makes  serious  effort  to  balk  it,  he  is  at  once  stranded  as 
a  piece  of  drift  thrown  out  of  the  current.  All  of  us  — 
both  those  north  and  those  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's 
line  —  ought  to  learn  this  truth  thoroughly.  The  former 
should  correct  their  false  judgments  as  to  Calhoun, 
Toombs,  Yancey,  and  Davis;  the  latter  as  to  Sumner, 
Garrison,  and  Phillips.  It  was  but  to  be  expected  that 
these  false  judgments  would  be  cherished  all  through 
what  we  may  call  the  era  of  civil  fury.  That  begins 
with  the  excitement  over  the  admission  of  California  and 
extends  to  the  time  after  the  war  when  the  project 
of  giving  a  negro  constituency  the  balance  of  political 
power  in  each  southern  State  was  abandoned.  But  now 
as  the  brothers  can  look  back  upon  those  evil  days  with 
at  least  the  beginning  of  dispassionate  calmness,  the  task 
of  convincing  the  whole  people  of  each  section  that  the 
more  prominent  figures  of  the  other  in  the  era  men 
tioned  were  all  true  men  and  patriots,  should  be  pushed 
forward  with  his  whole  might  by  every  one  who  loves 
his  country.  It  is  not  demanded  that  we  claim  too  much 
for  them.  To  begin  illustrating:  Toombs's  Tremont 
Temple  lecture  on  slavery  is  such  an  able  and  powerful 
defence  of  the  south  that  its  reputation  must  forever 
increase.  Yet  as  we  consider  it  now  we  see  that 


Brothers  on  each  Side  True  Patriots  351 

what  he  believed  with  all  his  heart  to  be  the  perpetual 
pillar  and  weal  of  his  community  was  in  fact  its  woe  and 
ruin.  We  see,  as  to  Calhoun,  that  if  he  had  but  given 
the  resources  of  southern  slavery  against  the  implacable 
oppugnancy  of  free  labor,  roused  for  decisive  combat, 
the  sure  and  marvellous  vision  with  which  he  searched 
the  innermost  nature  of  money,  he  would  have  had  to 
acknowledge  that  the  proud  structure  of  southern  society 
was  wholly  builded  upon  sands.  The  rains  descended 
and  the  floods  beat,  and  we  saw  the  great  fall.  Of 
course  we  must  admit  that  had  our  leaders  been  endowed 
with  unerring  prescience  they  ought  to  have  warned  us, 
and  striven  heart  and  soul  for  compensated  emancipa 
tion.  I  need  merely  allude  to  State  sovereignty,  treated 
fully  above.  We  of  the  south  now  see  that  though  in 
advocating  it  we  showed  that  the  fathers  were  with  us, 
and  thus  got  the  better  of  the  argument,  yet  that  the 
north  was  right  in  historical  fact,  and  right  also  as  to  the 
true  interest  and  welfare  of  America.  Thus  I  have  in 
dicated  some  important  acknowledgments  which  we  of 
the  south  must  make  to  our  brothers  of  the  north.  Now 
I  must  state  some  that  they  must  make  to  us. 

The  root-and-branch  abolitionists  and  many  following 
their  lead  interpreted  the  statement  in  the  declaration 
of  independence  that  all  men  are  created  equal  and 
with  inalienable  liberty  as  both  intentional  and  actual 
condemnation  of  the  slavery  then  existing  in  our  country. 
They  shut  their  eyes  to  the  significant  fact  that  the  same 
document  published  to  the  world,  as  one  of  the  causes 
justifying  the  solemn  act  therein  proclaimed,  that  the 
king  had  "  excited  domestic  insurrections  amongst  us  " ; 
which  means  he  had  instigated  the  slaves  to  rise  against 
their  masters.  Many  of  the  signers  owned  slaves  then 
and  to  the  end  of  their  lives  afterwards.  Palpably  the 
declaration  did  not  mean  to  say  that  the  negroes  in 


352  The  Brothers'  War 

America  were  unjustly  held  in  slavery,  but  did  mean  to 
say  that  inciting  them  —  as  John  Brown  with  the  ap 
proval  of  Phillips,  Garrison,  and  such,  afterwards  sought 
to  do  —  to  gain  their  liberty  by  insurrection  was  inhuman 
and  atrocious.  These  root-and-branch  abolitionists  con 
fidently  alleged  that  slavery  in  America  was  proscribed 
by  the  Christian  religion.  Yet  Jesus,  the  founder,  who 
definitely  reprehended  every  particular  sin,  never  once 
denounced  slavery.  Paul,  or  some  one  else,  whom  the 
canon  accepts  as  speaking  with  the  authority  of  Jesus, 
says:  "All  who  are  in  the  position  of  slaves  should 
regard  their  masters  as  deserving  of  the  greatest  respect, 
so  that  the  name  of  God,  and  our  teaching  may  not  be 
maligned.  Those  who  have  Christian  masters  should 
not  think  less  of  them  because  they  are  brothers,  but 
on  the  contrary  they  should  serve  them  all  the  better, 
because  those  who  are  to  benefit  by  their  good  work 
are  dear  to  them  as  their  fellow-christians.  Those  are 
the  things  to  insist  upon  in  your  teaching.  Any  one 
who  teaches  otherwise,  and  refuses  his  assent  to  sound 
instruction  —  the  instruction  of  otir  Lord  Jesus  Christ — 
and  to  the  teaching  of  religion,  is  puffed  up  with  conceit, 
not  really  knowing  anything,  but  having  a  morbid  crav 
ing  for  discussions  and  arguments."  1 

The  passage  last  quoted  —  to  which  several  others 
from  the  new  testament,  almost  as  strong,  can  be 
added  —  demonstrates  that  Christianity  did  not  disap 
prove  of  slavery.  Further,  as  I  have  already  suggested, 
the  slavery  not  rebuked  by  Jesus  and  his  apostles  was 
mainly  that  of  kin  in  blood  and  race,  of  those  who  had 
been  in  a  measure  free  themselves  or  descendants  of  the 
free.  The  slaves  of  the  south  were  far  remote  in  blood, 

1  i  Timothy  vi.  1-4.  I  have  quoted  the  Twentieth  Century  Testament 
because  of  its  extremely  faithful  version.  Of  course  the  italics  are  mine. 


Brothers  on  each  Side  True  Patriots   353 

and  their  native  condition  so  bad  that  American  slavery 
was  for  them  elevation  and  great  improvement. 

The  new  testament,  the  declaration  of  independence, 
and  the  federal  constitution  —  surely  three  very  respec 
table  authorities,  in  America  at  least  —  stand  together 
in  solid  phalanx.  They  clearly  demonstrate  that  the 
charge  that  southern  slavery  was  heinously  wrong  in 
itself,  and  that  the  masters  were  wicked  man-stealers  and 
kidnappers,  made  for  a  long  while  in  every  corner  of 
the  north,  was  mere  opprobrium  and  abuse.  Both  sec 
tions  ought  to  learn  that  there  was  nothing  in  negro 
slavery  to  shock  the  moral  sense,  but  that  on  the  con 
trary  it  was  in  its  general  effect  of  the  utmost  benefi 
cence  to  the  slave.  Both  ought  to  learn  also  that  the 
white-hot  zeal  with  which  the  institution  was  fought  was 
due  mainly  to  these  things : 

1.  Free  labor  had  long  been  in  an  uncompromising 
hand-to-hand  struggle  with  slave  labor.     Years  before 
this  commenced  the  employing  class  had  subconsciously 
divined   it  was  far  more  profitable  to  hire  the  laborer 
only  when  his  work  was  needed,  and  then  let  him  go 
until  he  was  needed  again.     The  worker  with  the  ad 
vance  of  democracy  had  become  more  and  more  hos 
tile  to  a  system  coercing  his  labor  and  denying  him  all 
political  and  civil  rights.     The  co-operation  of  employer 
and   laborer  had  expelled  slavery  of  white   men  from 
Europe.     The  feeling  towards  slavery  had  become  one 
of  decided  opposition. 

2.  In  America  the  opposition  to  slavery  was  power 
fully  re-enforced,  first,  by  the  new  cause  the  latter  gave 
in  competing  with  free  labor   for  the  unsettled  public 
domain,   and   then  in  its    operation  to  nationalize  the 
south  into  a  separate  federation.     With  this  combined 
the  growing  conception  among  the  northern  people  of 
the  negro  as  a  man  who  had  reached  the  stage  of  devel- 

23 


354  The  Brothers'  War 

opment  characterizing  the  typical  white.  This  huge 
mistake,  hugged  to  their  bosoms  and  championed  with 
unflagging  zeal  by  the  ablest  and  most  influential  root- 
and-branch  abolitionists,  had  a  prodigious  propagandic 
effect.  It  identified  the  cause  of  the  negro  slave,  whom 
evolution  had  not  yet  made  ready  for  liberty,  with  that 
of  the  oppressed  European  who  had  been  long  ready 
for  it;  and  consequently  that  cause  was  continuously 
advocated  with  the  passion  which  the  French  revolution 
had  started  against  human  inequality.  The  root-and- 
branch  abolitionists  at  last  excited  a  pseudo-moral 
paroxysm  among  thousands  at  the  north  and  kept  it 
increasing  for  a  long  while. 

Facts  which  cannot  now  be  gainsaid  plainly  justify  me 
in  denying  that  conscientious  conviction  was  the  real 
primary  motive.  The  northern  and  southern  churches 
split,  all  the  wisest  and  best  of  the  former  standing 
against,  all  those  of  the  latter  for  slavery.  You  must 
see  that  their  moral  convictions  were  secondary,  not 
primary  motives ;  that  some,  superior  power  had  given 
to  one  side  to  regard  slavery  as  wrong  and  to  the  other 
to  regard  it  as  right ;  that  it  really  had  given  the  two 
sides  differing  consciences.  If  you  but  invoke  the  uni 
versal  history  of  mankind  this  fact  now  under  considera 
tion  will  cease  to  appear  marvellous.  You  will  find  it 
to  be  the  rule  that  the  struggle  for  existence  develops 
in  every  community  an  instinct  which  resistlessly 
prompts  to  the  maintenance  of  its  great  economic  inter 
est.  This  instinct  is  the  special  preserver  of  the  family, 
of  the  neighborhood,  of  the  country.  It  is  not  strange 
that  that  which  gives  sustenance  and  comfort  to  one's 
family,  and  what  he  sees  all  the  best  of  his  neighbors 
using  as  he  does,  will  seem  unquestionably  right  to  him. 
It  is  not  strange  that,  in  such  a  serious  conflict  of  inter 
est  as  the  intersectional  one  of  dividing  a  vast  empire 


Brothers  on  each  Side  True  Patriots     355 

between  such  fell  competitors  as  free  labor  and  slave 
labor,  each  side  will  differ  diametrically  in  conscience  as 
to  right  and  wrong.  Also  it  is  not  strange  that  they 
should  lose  temper,  shower  abuse  upon  their  opponents, 
and  fill  the  land  with  mutual  accusations  of  heinous 
moral  offences. 

It  is  just  as  far  wrong  to  regard  the  controversy 
between  anti-  and  pro-slavery  men  —  which  was  at  bot 
tom  but  a  quarrel  between  north  and  south  at  first  over 
the  division  of  the  Territories  between  the  free  labor 
system  and  the  slave  labor  system,  and  later  over  the 
other  question  whether  a  slave  republic  should  divide 
the  continent  with  the  United  States  —  as  a  contest  over 
a  moral  question,  as  it  would  be  to  make  either  the 
American  or  the  French  revolution  such  a  contest.  All 
three  —  the  intersectional  struggle  as  to  slavery  and  the 
two  revolutions  —  were  mainly  impelled  by  a  desire  of 
each  side  in  every  one  to  better  or  hold  on  to  its  material 
resources  —  that  is,  the  leading  impulsion  was  economic. 
Of  course  the  combatants  on  each  side  claimed  that  they 
themselves  were  right  and  their  adversaries  wrong  in 
morals.  The  rencounter  between  free  labor  and  slave 
labor  was  very  much  like  that  now  on  between  capitalists 
and  labor  organizations.  Note  how  each  side  denounces 
the  conduct  of  the  other,  alleging  it  to  be  against  moral 
justice.  The  most  superficial  observer  discerns  that  the 
real  cause  of  difference  between  them  is  not  one  of  con 
science,  but  one  of  interest.  We  ought  to  understand 
that  the  crimination  of  the  root-and-branch  abolitionist 
and  the  recrimination  of  the  fire-eater  were  each  but 
stage  thunder.  The  southern  master  must  be  wholly 
exonerated  from  the  charge  that  in  working  his  slave  he 
committed  moral  offence  against  the  dearest  American 
rights ;  the  claim  for  the  African,  who  was  in  a  far  lower 
circle  of  development,  of  equal  civil  and  political  privi- 


356  The  Brothers'  War 

leges  with  the  white  must  be  disallowed;  and  it  be  fully 
conceded  that  the  southern  people,  leaders  and  all,  were 
but  doing  their  conscience-commanded  duty  throughout. 
Also  we  of  the  south  must  learn  that  the  root-and- 
branch  abolitionist,  even  in  his  wildest  moments  —  Sum- 
ncr  refusing  in  the  United  States  senate  to  show  respect 
to  Butler's  gray  hairs,  Wendell  Phillips  degrading  Wash 
ington  below  Toussaint,  Garrison  denouncing  the  slavery- 
protecting  constitution  as  a  covenant  with  death  and  an 
agreement  with  hell,  John  Brown  invading  Virginia  — 
was  just  as  conscientious  as  Robert  Lee  was  when  he 
was  defending  the  soil  of  his  native  State.  They  were 
each  irresistibly  constrained  by  the  powers  working  to 
save  the  union  to  think  his  particular  action  right  and 
the  highest  patriotism. 

When  the  quarrel  is  over,  when  the  broil  and  the  feud 
have  been  fought  out  and  the  survivors  have  shaken 
hands,  when  the  lawsuit  has  become  a  thing  of  the  past 
and  the  litigants  have  renewed  their  old  relations,  no 
wise  and  good  man  keeps  repeating  the  accusations  of 
bad  faith  and  of  unrighteous  conduct  which  he  passion 
ately  hurled  against  his  adversary  during  the  variance. 
Rather  he  confesses  to  himself,  "I  wronged  him  when  I 
said  those  hot  words ; "  and  his  repentance  does  not  bring 
complete  peace  until  he  has  found  his  brother  and  taken 
all  of  them  back. 

If  it  only  could  be,  the  nation  ought  to  have  a  great 
reunion,  a  feast  of  reconcilement,  where,  with  proper 
solemnities,  the  people  of  each  section,  with  their  fore 
fathers  and  leaders,  should  be  fully  and  finally  excul 
pated  as  to  everything  done  for  or  against  slavery  by 
the  people  of  the  other  section.  It  is  plain  that  both 
ought  to  forget  and  forgive.  They  ought  to  do  still 
more.  They  ought  to  compete  each  in  utmost  effort 
to  vindicate  the  favorites  and  loved  ones  of  the  other 


Brothers  on  each  Side  True  Patriots     357 

the  more  intelligently,  and  to  admire  and  praise  them 
the  more  enthusiastically.  This  would  be  to  bring  the 
millennium  nearer,  and  give  our  country  "a  nobleness 
in  record  upon "  all  others.  It  only  needs  for  this 
consummation  to  cast  aside  the  remnant  of  greatly 
diminished  prejudice,  and  make  a  brief  study  of  a  small 
volume  of  material  evidence  and  of  the  ordinary  princi 
ples  which  guide  the  conduct  of  the  good  citizen.  Such 
study  will  show  that  southerner  and  northerner  through 
out  their  fell  encounter  have  each  the  very  highest  claims 
to  the  respect  and  love  of  the  entire  nation. 

What  a  golden  deed  it  was  of  President  McKinley 
when,  December  14,  1898,  fully  using  a  rare  oppor 
tunity,  he  spake  in  his  high  place  to  the  members  of  the 
Georgia  legislature  this  message  of  reunion : 

"  Sectional  lines  no  longer  mar  the  map  of  the  United  States. 
Sectional  feeling  no  longer  holds  back  the  love  we  bear  each 
other.  Fraternity  is  the  national  anthem,  sung  by  a  chorus  of 
forty-five  States  and  our  Territories  at  home  and  beyond  the 
seas.  The  union  is  once  more  the  common  altar  of  our  love 
and  loyalty,  our  devotion  and  sacrifice.  The  old  flag  again 
waves  over  us  in  peace  with  new  glories,  which  your  sons  and 
ours  have  this  year  added  to  its  sacred  folds.  What  cause  we 
have  for  rejoicing,  saddened  only  because  so  many  of  our  brave 
men  fell  on  the  field  or  sickened  and  died  from  hardship  and 
exposure,  and  others  returning  bring  wounds  and  disease  from 
which  they  will  long  suffer.  The  memory  of  the  dead  will  be 
a  precious  legacy,  and  the  disabled  will  be  the  nation's  care. 

Every  soldier's  grave  made  during  our  unfortunate  civil  war 
is  a  tribute  to  American  valor.  And  while  when  those  graves 
were  made  we  differed  widely  about  the  nature  of  this  government, 
these  differences  have  been  settled  by  the  arbitrament  of  arms. 
The  time  has  now  come,  in  the  evolution  of  sentiment  and  feel 
ing,  under  the  providence  of  God,  when  in  the  spirit  of  frater 
nity  we  should  share  with  you  the  care  of  the  graves  of  the 
confederate  soldiers.  The  cordial  feeling  now  happily  existing 


358  The  Brothers'  War 

between  the  north  and  south  prompts  this  gracious  act.  If  it 
needs  further  justification,  it  is  found  in  the  gallant  loyalty  to 
the  union  and  the  flag  so  conspicuously  shown  in  the  year  just 
passed  by  the  sons  and  grandsons  of  these  heroic  dead." 

By  the  favor  given  Fitzhugh  Lee,  Joe  Wheeler,  and 
other  old  confederates,  and  his  earnest  and  successful 
efforts  for  universal  amnesty  to  all  who  had  helped  our 
cause,  Mr.  McKinley  had  already  won  the  hearts  of  the 
southern  people.  This  speech  increased  our  love  a  hun 
dred  fold.  We  repeated  the  "  soft  words "  over  and 
over,  companioning  them  with 

"  O  they  banish  our  anger  forever 
When  they  laurel  the  graves  of  our  dead." 

On  each  one  of  our  three  subsequent  Memorial  Days 
during  his  life  he  was  thought  of  as  tenderly  as  the 
precious  dead.  And  since  the  death  of  Jefferson  Davis 
there  has  been  no  sorrow  of  the  south  equal  to  that 
over  his  assassination.  This  is  the  age  of  funerals  that 
crown  with  supreme  popular  honor  the  doers  of  high 
deeds  for  country  and  race.  The  imposing  obsequies 
given  the  president,  the  demonstrations  in  his  own  sec 
tion,  and  those  in  foreign  lands,  have  rarely  been  out 
done.  But  he  had  a  greater  glory.  It  was  the  genuine 
lamentation  over  him  that  day  by  reconciled  brothers 
and  sisters  in  every  southern  household.  You  that 
know  history  better,  tell  me  when  and  where  a  whiter 
and  sweeter  flower  was  ever  laid  upon  a  coffin. 

Let  all  of  us  on  each  side  of  the  old  dividing  line 
strive  without  ceasing  to  give  the  good  work  which  the 
great  peacemaker  begun  so  well  its  fit  consummation. 

And  replacing  hate  and  anger  with  love,  fiction  with 
fact,  and  false  doctrine  with  true,  let  the  people  of  the 
north  and  the  people  of  the  south  join  heads,  con 
sciences,  and  hearts  to  ascertain  what  is  our  duty  both  to 
negro  and  white,  and  then  join  hands  and  do  that  duty. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  RACE  QUESTION  — GENERAL  AND  INTRODUCTORY 


D 


i.  "J  "^ENSE  fogs  from  various  sources  have  settled 
over  this  subject.  The  root-and-branch  abo 
litionists  have  made  many  believe  that  eman 
cipation  of  the  slaves  was  the  great  object  of  the  north 
in  the  brothers'  war.  The  authors  and  defenders  of  the 
three  amendments  —  especially  of  the  fifteenth  —  have 
made  many  others  believe  that  the  inferiority  of  the  south 
ern  negro  is  the  effect  of  American  slavery ;  that  the  cause 
having  been  removed  by  emancipation  he  became  at 
once  ready  and  well  prepared  for  the  exercise  of  political 
privileges ;  and  that  the  practical  denial  to  him  of  this 
exercise  is  a  heinous  crime  of  the  southern  whites.  Pol 
iticians  want  southern  negro  ballots  in  national  conven 
tions  and  the  northern  negro  vote  in  elections.  The 
bounty,  both  public  and  private,  founding,  sustaining, 
and  multiplying  colleges,  schools,  and  other  negro  edu 
cational  institutions,  finds  a  growing  host  of  beneficiaries 
—  such  as  site-owners,  who  scheme  to  sell  for  two  prices, 
those  who  want  to  be  presidents,  principals,  professors, 
teachers,  even  janitors  and  floor-scrubbers,  schoolbook 
publishers,  and  still  others  —  who  would  keep  it  copiously 
flowing ;  and  so  they  all  magnify  the  ability  of  the  typical 
negro  and  the  benefit  to  him  of  the  institutions  mentioned. 
Respectable  and  influential  magazines  and  newspapers, 
with  an  increasing  number  of  negro  readers,  really  be 
lieve  that  very  many  more  can  be  added  by  a  little 
effort,  and  so  they  champion  what  these  readers  favor. 
Persuasive  speakers  and  writers  like  Mr.  Edgar  Gardner 


360  The  Brothers'  War 

Murphy,  unconsciously  influenced  either  by  employers 
who  would  always  have  a  wage-depressing  lever  at 
command,  or  by  those  who  would  have  Cuffee  do  what 
they  ought  themselves  to  do,  overrate  the  importance 
of  negro  labor  as  a  southern  resource.  And  the  last  fog 
makers  whom  I  shall  mention  are  the  inveterate  opti 
mists  —  amiable  beyond  expression  —  who  will  not 
admit  that  there  is  now  any  serious  menace  to  either 
race  in  the  south. 

The  several  fogs  enumerated  overlay  one  another  in 
an  aggregate  too  opaque  for  the  uncleared  eye  to  pierce. 
As  examples  ol  their  obscuring  effect,  consider  anything 
said  in  the  census  as  to  the  negro,  and  the  articles 
"  Negro  Education,"  "  Negro  in  America,"  and  especially 
"  Hayti "  in  the  Encyclopedia  Americana  lately  published. 
The  authors  of  the  fifteenth  amendment,  in  making  voters 
and  rulers  of  late  negro  slaves,  repeated  what  had  been 
done  in  Hayti.  It  seems  therefore  that  the  Encyclo 
pedia  must  tell  nothing  of  the  island  but  what  is  good. 
So  we  read  in  the  relevant  article  that  it  abolished 
slavery  in  1804,  being  "  the  first  country  to  rid  humanity 
of  such  a  sad  practice ;  "  that  there  education  "  is  com 
pulsory  and  gratuitous,"  a  sixth  of  the  revenues  being 
devoted  to  it,  and  the  most  pleasant  things  concerning 
religion,  liberal  naturalization  practice,  natural  and 
artificial  products,  railroads,  telegraph,  and  telephone. 
One  without  other  information  would  surely  think  the 
community  greatly  advanced  and  blessed.  Its  true  con 
dition  is  thus  told  in  Brockhaus  by  somebody  who  does 
not  swear  by  the  fifteenth  amendment :  "  It  may  be  said 
in  general  that  the  country  is  sparsely  populated,  partly 
because  of  incessant  civil  wars,  partly  because  of  a  high 
infant  death  rate." l 

1  "Where  Black  Rules  White,"  by  Hugo  Erichsen,  in  the  Pilgrim  for 
July,  1905,  deserves  the  title  "  Hayti  As  It  Is."  The  Americana  article 
ought  to  be  conspicuously  labelled  "  Hayti  Whitewashed." 


The  Race  Question  —  Introductory    361 

These  fogs  must  be  lifted.  Great  harm  to  each  race 
will  follow  if  we  persist  in  keeping  the  facts  concealed. 

2.  Do  not  confound  the  feeling  that  you  are  different 
from  Jew,  European,  protestant,  catholic,  absolutist, 
socialist,  anarchist,  or  any  other  white,  with  the  feeling 
that  you  are  different  from  negroes ;  for  to  do  this  is  to 
keep  you  from  all  clear  thinking  upon  our  present  sub 
ject.  The  former  are  all  of  our  own  race,  and  we  can 
and  do  intermarry  with  them  to  the  improvement  of  our 
population.  If  the  per  cent  of  negroes  was  no  greater 
in  the  south  than  in  the  north,  fusion  could  not  be  a  very 
grave  matter;  for  should  it  become  complete,  our  lily- 
white  would  not  be  diminished  by  the  fraction  of  a  shade. 
But  to  absorb  the  eight  millions  of  them  now  in  our 
section  would  make  us  chocolate,  if  not  mulatto.  Their 
color  is  the  smallest  racial  objection.  Although  their 
schooling  for  two  centuries  and  more  in  American  slavery 
has  elevated  them  —  as  Mr.  Tillinghast  proves  —  far 
above  what  they  were  in  native  slavery,  still  their  cranial 
capacity,  brain  convolutions,  and  moral,  intellectual,  and 
social  development — inherited  without  fault  of  theirs  — 
from  West  African  ancestors,  are  still  greatly  inferior  to 
ours.  Remote  generations  of  our  forefathers  were  much 
lower  than  the  present  American  negroes,  as  Darwin 
admits  in  the  oft  quoted  passage,  describing  his  first 
sight  of  the  Fuegians.  We  should  never  forget  that  the 
Caucasian  was  once  on  a  level  with  those  Fuegians. 
The  negroes  when  they  came  to  America  were  little 
better.  And  yet  they  have  gone  up  so  much  higher,  it 
is  plain  that  evolution,  if  only  permitted  to  work  in  a 
proper  environment,  will  do  for  them  what  it  has  done 
for  us. 

But  the  whites  cannot  consent  to  intermarriage.  That 
would  greatly  benefit  the  negroes.  While  some  who 
have  never  had  good  opportunity  of  actual  observation 


362  The  Brothers'  War 

confidently  contend  that  there  are  no  backward  or  lower 
races,  we  southerners  have  noted  all  our  lives  that  a  very 
great  majority  of  the  negroes  who  climb  above  the  level 
and  prosper  in  occupation,  have  a  large  admixture  of 
white  blood.  It  would  be  an  enormous  rise  for  the  mass 
if  fusion  were  assured.  But  for  us  —  why,  we  should 
disinherit  our  children  of  their  share  in  the  grand  destiny 
of  the  Caucasian  race  if  we  made  average  negroes  their 
fathers  or  mothers. 

Southern  dread  of  amalgamation  is  not  to  be  scouted 
as  a  mere  bugbear.  Think  of  the  half-breeds  that  lined 
all  the  border  between  the  States  and  the  Indians ;  of 
how  the  whites  have  mixed  with  native  races  in  Mexico, 
Central  and  South  America;  of  white  and  negro  inter 
mingling  in  Cuba,  Hayti,  Jamaica,  in  the  United  States, 
and  especially  in  the  south.  Think  of  whites  and 
negroes  now  legally  married  and  marrying  in  the  neigh 
boring  States  of  the  Union.  In  1902,  eight  white  women 
were  living  with  negro  husbands  in  Xenia,  Ohio ;  *  and 
there  were  children  of  all  these  mixed  marriages  except 
one.2  Consider  also  that  prominent  negroes  advocate 
these  marriages.  Douglass  had  a  white  wife.  He 
preached  that  the  American  negro  must  set  before 
himself  assimilation  as  his  true  goal.  Professor  DuBois 
is  really  a  disciple  of  Douglass,  as  appears  from  some 
of  his  utterances.  We  give  in  a  footnote  what  another 
prominent  negro  has  recently  said  in  public.8  The 

1  Bureau  of  Labor  Bulletin,  No.  48,  September,  1903,  pp.  1006,  1013, 
1019. 

2  Id.  1020. 

8  Bishop  Lucius  H.  Holsey,  D.D.,  of  the  colored  M.  E.  Church,  is 
much  more  in  touch  and  sympathy  with  the  negro  masses  than  Professor 
DuBois.  Here  is  something  recently  said  by  him  : 

"  As  long  as  the  two  races  live  in  the  same  territory  in  immediate  con 
tact,  their  relations  will  be  such  as  to  intermingle  in  that  degree  that  half- 
bloods,  quarter-bloods  and  a  mongrel  progeny  will  result.  This  is  not  only 


The  Race  Question  —  Introductory     363 

moment  that  the  negro  became  an  influential  factor  in 
southern  politics,  a  real  agitation  against  the  anti-inter 
marriage  laws  would  begin.  There  would  come  a  small 
number  of  negroes,  controlling  votes,  of  so  much  prop 
erty  and  respectability  that  their  children  would  be  re 
garded  as  eligible  matches  by  some  of  the  poorer  and 
more  destitute  whites.  Marriages  between  such,  solemn 
ized  on  a  visit  to  a  State  permitting,  would  occur.  And 
our  laws  last  mentioned  would  be  more  and  more  evaded 
and  their  repeal  become  gradually  more  probable- 
When  they  had  won  political  equality  with  the  patri 
cians,  the  Roman  plebeians  repealed  the  prohibition  of 
intermarriage  which  the  former  had  stubbornly  main 
tained.  These  two  orders  were  of  the  same  race.  There 
fore  intermarriage  could  not  be  the  boon  to  the  plebeians 
that  it  would  now  be  to  the  southern  negro,  lifting  him 
up  as  it  would  do.  If  he  has  opportunity,  he  will  strug 
gle  for  it  more  resolutely  than  the  plebeians  did.  A  small 
number  of  negroes  have  already  been  assimilated  in 
America,  and  a  few  more  are  still  to  be  assimilated,  as 

going  on  now,  but  is  destined  to  annihilate  the  true  typical  ante-bellum 
negro  type,  and  put  in  his  place  a  stronger,  a  longer  lived,  and  a  more 
Anglo-Saxon-like  homogeneous  race.  In  other  words,  the  negro  to  come 
will  not  be  the  negro  of  the  emancipation  proclamation,  but  he  will  be 
the  Anglo-Saxonized  Afro-American.  It  seems  true,  as  has  been  said, 
'No  race  can  look  the  Anglo-Saxon  in  the  face  and  live.'  Certainly  no 
other  race  can  hold  its  own  in  his  immediate  presence.  Being  in  imme 
diate  contact  and  underrating  the  mental  and  moral  virtues  of  others  and 
exercising  a  sovereignty  over  them,  his  opportunities  are  enlarged  to 
make  other  races  his  own  in  consanguinity.  This  he  never  fails  to  do." 
Address  before  the  National  Sociological  Society  at  the  Lincoln  Temple 
Congregational  Church,  The  Possibilities  of  the  Negro  in  Symposium, 
107  (Atlanta,  Ga.). 

In  the  same  address,  just  a  little  above  the  quotation  just  made,  this 
occurs :  "  Legal  intermarriage  in  the  south,  although  not  wrong  in  its 
consummation,  is  a  matter  as  yet  undebatable,  and  belongs  only  to  the 
future."  Id.  107. 

These  words  of  Bishop  Holsey  are  weighty  proof  that  the  negroes 
strongly  desire  and  expect  amalgamation. 


364  The  Brothers'  War 

I  shall  explain  later  on.  This  sure  deliverance  from 
the  destruction  which  now  threatens  is  more  and  more 
sought  after  by  the  intelligent  few.  And  if  the  vote  of 
the  negroes  was  allowed  to  count,  it  would  not  be  long 
until,  under  the  example  and  appeal  of  their  leaders,  all 
of  them  would  be  making  for  that  haven  of  refuge.  Mon- 
grelism  beats  upon  the  border  all  around  the  south;  it 
threatens  to  burst  forth  from  an  exhaustless  source 
within.  We  know  we  must  keep  it  out  as  Holland 
does  the  ocean.  Subconsciously  discerning  that  fusion 
would  probably  follow  the  entrance  of  the  negro  into 
government,  the  whites  have  made  of  the  race  primary 
and  other  measures  de  facto  disfranchising  him,  dikes 
against  the  filthy  waters  of  mongrelism  which  they  would 
not  have  to  wash  over  themselves.  This  is  not  because 
we  hate  the  negro.  We  love  and  cherish  him.  It  is  not 
to  be  demanded  of  us  that  we  sacrifice  ourselves,  our 
children,  and  our  children's  children  for  his  sake.  We 
will  gladly  do  all  that  friends  —  nay,  that  near  relatives 
—  can  with  justice  ask  of  one  another,  to  better  his  con 
dition  and  rescue  him.  We  cannot  give  him  political 
power  at  the  cost  of  our  degeneration. 

I  would  enforce  the  foregoing  contents  of  this  section 
with  these  profoundly  true  and  very  forcible  words  of 
a  northern  man,  now  residing  in  Columbia,  South 
Carolina : 

"  A  word  about  race  hatred,  race  revulsion,  or  race  antipathy. 
Many  people  in  the  north  believe  the  devil  is  the  author  of  it, 
and  some  people  in  the  south  are  more  devoted  to  it  than  to 
religion.  Race  antipathy  is  really  a  race  instinct,  a  moral  anti 
toxin  developed  by  nature  in  the  individual  whose  environment 
involves  constant  and  close  contact  with  an  inferior  race  in 
large  numbers.  It  works  for  the  salvation  of  the  purity  of  the 
superior  race."  1 

1  Edward  B.  Taylor,  The  Outlook,  July  16,  1904,  p.  670. 


The  Race  Question  —  Introductory     365 

Professor  DuBois  says  that  "  legal  marriage  is  in 
finitely  better  than  systematic  concubinage  and  pros 
titution."  1  And  some  writers  seem  to  think  it  would  be 
well  to  coerce  miscegenators  to  legitimate  their  relations 
by  intermarrying.  An  innocent  girl  —  a  maid  —  un 
done  ;  all  good  men  and  women  are  agreed  that  her 
seducer  should  be  made  to  marry  her.2  But  that  is 
only  where  the  marriage  would  be  tolerated  by  society. 
Thus  it  would  not  make  man  and  wife  of  parties  to  an 
incestuous  liaison.  No  moralist  contends  that  one  who 
has  received  a  favor  from  a  public  woman  is  under 
obligation  to  become  her  husband.  The  miscegenation 
common  is  that  between  white  men  and  promiscuous 
black  women.  How  idle  is  the  attempt  to  put  these 
cases  on  a  par  with  that  of  the  ruin  of  a  virtuous  woman. 
And  Professor  DuBois  could  not  have  rightly  weighed 
the  words  in  which  he  represents  them  to  be  as  criminal 
as  those  horrible  offences  which  especially  provoke 
lynching;  that  is,  that  the  negro  woman  who  consented 
most  willingly  to  the  embraces  of  her  master  was  as 
foully  wronged  by  him  as  her  mistress  would  be  by  a 
slave  who  outraged  her  against  her  will.3  No.  Inter 
marriage  of  these  mixed  lovers  is  not  demanded  by  any 
principle  of  justice.  But  the  public  weal  does  demand 
that  such  a  tremendous  evil  as  amalgamation  be  kept 
off  by  the  surest  and  most  decisive  measures.  It  is 
playing  with  plague  and  curse  unspeakable  for  us  of  the 
south  to  permit  the  existence  of  any  condition  which 
tends  even  in  the  slightest  degree  to  legalize  inter 
marriage.4 

1  The  Souls  of  Black  Folk,  106. 

2  See  Exodus  xxii.  16. 

8  The  Souls  of  Black  Folk,  106. 

4  May  6,  1905.  Having  finished  my  work  I  read  two  days  ago,  "  The 
Color  Line.  A  Brief  in  behalf  of  the  Unborn."  By  William  Benjamin 
Smith,  N.  Y.,  1905.  It  ably  and  vividly  explains  the  transcendent  im- 


366  The  Brothers'  War 

3.  Writers  still  under  the  spell  of  the  root-and-branch 
abolitionists  who  were  wont  to  exalt  Toussaint,  the 
Haytian  general,  above  our  Washington,  strain  hard  to 
conceal  the  real  cause  of  the  lamentable  conditions  now 
prevailing  in  Hayti  and  San  Domingo.  One  tells  us 
that  because  of  the  many  mountains,  there  being  no 
railroad  system,  separate  communities  are  defended  by 
almost  impregnable  natural  barriers,  and  as  neighbor 
ing  peoples  are  hereditary  enemies,  there  is  always  war 
somewhere.  The  remedy  recommended  is  to  build 
railroads  in  the  island  as  the  English  have  done  in 
Jamaica.  Another  writer  tells  us  that  we  must  not 
jump  to  the  conclusion  that  all  the  inhabitants  of 
San  Domingo  are  degraded  negroes;  that  while  the 
population  of  the  interior  are  sunk  in  ignorance,  super 
stition,  and  barbarism,  yet  in  the  capital  and  the  coast 
towns  there  are  some  people  of  apparently  lily-white 
strain,  well  educated,  speaking  two  or  three  languages, 
who  supply  the  mulatto  republic  with  generals  and 
political  leaders.  The  masses  of  these  Dominicans  are 
very  patriotic,  and  would  indeed  do  finely  if  they  were 
not  divided  into  hostile  parties  by  self-seeking  agitators. 
And  you  may  consult  many  others  who  keep  back  the 
real  explanation.  There  is  one  cardinal  fact  which 
stands  forth  in  the  history  of  Hayti  as  prominently  as 

portance  of  keeping  the  blood  of  Caucasians  in  America  uncontaminated 
with  that  of  the  African,  and  demonstrates  that  to  do  this  the  color  line 
must  be  rigidly  maintained  between  negroid  as  well  as  coal-black,  on  one 
side,  and  white  on  the  other.  The  utter  impossibility  of  making  the  man 
of  a  particular  race  like  the  man  of  another  extremely  remote  one  by 
even  the  most  careful  education  is  shown  with  startling  effect.  The 
inability  of  the  black  to  hold  his  own  against  white  competition,  and 
his  gradual  and  sure  expulsion  is  proved  by  overwhelming  evidence. 
The  book  is  useful  as  an  introduction  to  all  the  literature  of  the  subject. 
The  only  fault  that  I  note  is  its  excessive  warmth  and  combativeness  — 
especially  in  the  first  half.  With  the  dispassionate  serenity  of  Mr. 
Tillinghast,  it  would  have  been  perfect. 


The  Race  Question  —  Introductory     367 

slavery  does  in  the  train  of  American  events  which 
brought  on  the  brothers'  war.  It  is  this:  soon  after 
the  outbreak  of  the  French  revolution  the  mulattoes 
were  accorded  political  privileges,  and  then  a  little  later 
—  it  was  in  1794  —  France  equalized  the  negroes  of  her 
colonies  just  freed  with  the  whites  in  political  and  civil 
rights.  This  made  the  negroes  of  Hayti,  who  were  in 
intelligence  and  development  somewhat  below  those  o| 
the  south  when  the  latter  were  emancipated,  full-fledged 
self-governing  republicans.  The  whites  were  but  few. 
What  of  them  were  not  massacred  at  once  by  the  blacks 
fled  for  their  lives.  The  history  of  both  the  Haytian 
and  the  Dominican  republic  (the  latter  achieving  its 
independence  in  1844)  is  the  same.  Their  people  make 
a  hell  on  earth  of  the  most  beautiful  and  fertile  of  islands. 
As  slavery  was  plainly  the  cause  of  the  southern  con^ 
federacy,  the  grant  of  political  power  to  the  mulattoes 
and  negroes  not  at  all  qualified  to  use  it  is  just  as 
plainly  the  cause  and  sole  author  of  chronic  civil  war 
and  anarchy  in  Hayti  and  San  Domingo. 

This  enfranchisement  of  semi-barbarians  was  from  the 
'prentice  hand  of  a  new  republic,  without  any  expe 
rience  in  free  institutions.  The  English  did  far  better 
when  they  emancipated  the  Jamaica  negro  by  the  act 
of  1833.  They  gave  him  full  protection  of  his  liberty, 
person,  and  contract  and  property  rights.  Five  sixths 
of  the  800,000  of  its  present  population  are  colored 
people  or  blacks.  These  —  to  quote  the  Encyclopedia 
Americana —  "  have  no  share  in  the  government  what 
ever."  It  further  says :  "  The  Jamaica  negroes  are 
fairly  good  laborers  when  well  fed;  the  menial  work 
of  the  island  is  performed  by  them,  and  they  are  re 
garded  as  cheerful,  honest,  and  respectful  servants." 

This  happy  condition  of  quiet  and  content  is  not  due 
to  the  fact  that  the  railroads  prevent  settlement  of  the 


368  The  Brothers'  War 

negroes  in  separate  neighboring  communities  to  quarrel 
and  fight  with  one  another;  but  it  is  because  the  Eng 
lish  never  allowed  them  to  get  the  taste  of  blood  as  the 
French  permitted  to  their  brothers  in  Hayti ;  they  have 
not  been  incited  by  unseasonable  political  power  to 
license  and  riot. 

The  negroes  of  Jamaica  are  evidently  bettering  in 
condition  slowly.  They  need  only  enough  of  Booker 
Washingtons  to  rise  much  faster.  I  beg  attention  to 
this  comparison  of  Jamaica  and  Hayti,  made  by  a  well- 
informed  negro,  a  native  of  the  former,  who  lived  there 
until  some  nine  years  ago,  and  who  has  lately  lived 
several  years  in  Hayti : l 

"They  [the  negroes  of  Jamaica]  aim  at  rising,  but  many 
make  the  mistake  of  not  rising  in  but  out  of  labor :  the  most 
intelligent  flock  to  the  professions,  civil  service,  &c.  Few  turn 
their  steps  to  what  is  for  the  real  upbuilding  of  the  country, 
agriculture,  that  for  which  it  is  best  adapted. 

The  people  of  Hayti  and  San  Domingo  are  of  a  political  turn 
of  mind,  and  sacrifice  everything  for  politics,  or  are  made  to 
do  so.  That  island  produces  as  fine  coffee  and  cocoa  as  can 
be  found  anywhere,  but  the  most  intelligent  keep  out  and  de 
prive  these  crops  of  scientific  cultivation." 

The  negroes  of  Hayti  and  San  Domingo  spurred  by 
their  politics  into  perpetual  fighting  and  bloodshed; 
the  negroes  of  Jamaica  peaceful  and  ripe  for  industrial 
training,  which  it  seems  the  English  have  resolved  to 
give  them  —  if  Booker  Washington  had  to  choose  one 
of  the  two  islands  for  his  future  activity,  do  you  not 
know  that  he  would  decide  he  could  do  great  things  in 
Jamaica  and  nothing  in  the  other? 

The  thirteenth  amendment  emancipated  the  slaves  in- 

1  The  quotations  which  immediately  follow  are  from  a  letter  of  J.  B.  A. 
Walker,  dated  Tuskegee,  Ala.,  July  27,  1904,  written  to  S.  H.  Comings, 
who  has  kindly  permitted  me  to  make  use  of  it. 


The  Race  Question  —  Introductory     369 

stantly  and  not  gradually,  the  fourteenth  made  them 
complete  citizens  of  the  United  States  and  of  the 
particular  State  wherein  they  reside,  and  the  fifteenth 
practically  conferred  unlimited  suffrage  upon  them. 
The  Hayti,  and  not  the  Jamaica,  precedent  was  followed. 
The  brothers  that  had  conquered  were  blind  from  civil 
fury:  and  they  had  been  brought  by  the  root-and- 
branch  abolitionists  into  full  persuasion  that  the  south 
ern  negroes  were  ready  for  and  entitled  to  these  high 
privileges.  By  the  amendments  they  confidently  tried 
to  railroad  the  African  slave  in  one  instant  of  time  up 
the  long  steep  to  the  topmost  Caucasian  who  had 
established  liberty  and  self-government  over  a  conti 
nent,  and  made  it  perpetual.  We  pray  that  they  be 
forgiven,  for  they  knew  not  what  they  were  doing.  Had 
the  white  population  of  the  south  been  at  the  time  as 
disproportionate  to  the  black  as  it  was  in  Hayti  in  1794, 
it  would  also  have  been  massacred.  But  the  section  was 
full  of  late  confederate  soldiers.  When  the  fates  had 
decided  against  the  dear  cause  for  which  they  had 
fought  for  four  years  they  accepted  peace  in  good  faith. 
Now  their  conquerors  turned  loose  a  horde  of  black 
plunderers  to  despoil  the  little  that  war  had  left.  When 
I  read  Professor  Brown's  inability  to  say  whether  the 
work  of  the  Ku-Kluxwas  justifiable  or  not,1  I  thought  of 
Christ's  asking  if  it  was  right  to  do  good  on  the  sabbath 
day. 

The  lesson  to  be  learned  here  is  that  while  it  is  now 
too  late  to  make  the  thirteenth  amendment  what  it  ought 
to  have  been,  and  there  is  perhaps  no  need  to  alter  the 
fourteenth,  yet  there  must  be  abrogation  of  the  fifteenth 
as  to  the  great  mass  of  southern  negroes.  In  fact  this 
has  really  come  already  through  the  white  primary. 

1  Lower  South  in  Am.  Hist.  223.     When  Professor  Brown  read  "  The 

Clansman"  doubtless  his  hesitation  ended.  . 

>         >> 
24 


370  The  Brothers'  War 

Booker  Washington  is  a  great,  a  decisive  authority 
on  this  question.  He  counsels  the  negroes  to  eschew 
politics.  This  is  wise.  It  is  the  solid  interest  of  the 
negro  masses  that  they  accept  the  inevitable ;  just  as 
the  south  gave  up  slavery  when  we  could  hold  on  to  it 
no  longer. 

4.  The  southern  negroes  have  split  into  what  I  shall 
roughly  distinguish  as  an  upper  and  a  lower  class.  The 
former  includes  property  owners  and  such  as  are  in 
higher  occupations,  trades,  and  professions.  I  do  not 
believe  that  the  entire  class  contains  three  per  cent,  but 
I  shall  take  it  to  be  five  per  cent  of  the  whole  negroes 
in  the  section.  Exact  accuracy  here  is  not  important. 
It  needs  only  to  be  remembered  that  the  lower  class 
outnumbers  the  other  many  times  over.  They  are  mov 
ing  in  different  directions.  The  dominant  inclination  of 
the  upper  class  is  towards  incorporation  as  citizens, 
exercising  all  the  rights  of  the  white.  The  dominant 
inclination  of  the  lower  class  is  towards  segregation  in 
their  own  circles.  A  true  representative  of  the  former 
would  always  travel  in  a  white  railroad  car,  while  a  true 
representative  of  the  other  is  perfectly  content  with  the 
shabbiest  Jim  Crow,  if  the  whites  be  kept  out  of  it. 
Thousands  in  the  south  never  think  of  any  negroes  but 
those  of  the  lower,  thousands  in  the  north  never  think 
of  any  but  those  in  the  upper  class.  The  lower  class 
subsists  mainly  upon  agricultural,  domestic,  and  day  la 
bor.  There  is  a  rural  and  urban  section  of  each  one  of 
the  two.  The  rural  section  of  the  upper  class  has  little 
promise  of  permanence  and  growth,  but  its  urban  section 
seems  to  have  securer  foothold.  For  a  while  this  urban 
section  will  probably  increase  and  rise  in  condition  — 
both  slowly.  This  upper  class  is  now  steadily  sending 
some  of  its  members  from  country  and  town,  to  settle 
in  the  north.  As  I  read  the  signs  its  destiny  is  ultimate 


The  Race  Question -- Introductory     371 

dispersion  over  the  entire  country  and  gradual  disap 
pearance.  The  lower  class  settles  downwards  steadily. 
The  outlook  for  it  is  gloomy  in  the  extreme. 

5.  Somewhere  about  1890  —  which  year  we  may 
regard  as  approximately  beginning  the  manufacturing 
era  of  the  South  —  many  whites  in  the  section  had 
broken  with  the  old  ways  and  methods  and  resolved  to 
substitute  their  own  for  negro  labor  as  far  as  possible. 
These  awakened  men  and  women  multiply.  They  are 
pushing  the  lower  class  out  of  all  rural  labor,  and  both 
classes  out  of  agriculture;  and  they  are  also  pushing 
some  of  the  upper  class  out  of  the  trades  and  more 
important  occupations  in  both  town  and  country.  Evi 
dently  the  powers  have  decreed  that  the  labor  class  of 
the  south  shall  be  white  and  homogeneous  with  that  of 
the  north.  These  powers  who  delivered  the  white  labor 
ers  of  the  west  from  the  Chinese  will  also  deliver  the 
white  laborers  of  the  south  from  the  negroes. 

6.  There  is  soon  to  be  a  New  Industrial  South,  in 
which  the  most  advanced  machinery  and  laborers  of  the 
very  highest  skill  are  to  be  chief  factors.  A  little  later 
there  is  to  be  a  still  more  important  New  Agricultural 
South.  In  this,  the  empirical  restorative  methods  of  the 
Chinese,  which  Liebig,  in  his  day,  showed  to  be  ahead 
of  the  world,  must  be  far  surpassed.  Economy  of  the 
enormous  mass  of  fertile  elements  now  washing  into  the 
sea;  adequate  exploitation  of  the  nitrogen  of  the  air 
and  of  all  accessible  mineral  elements  needed ;  scientific 
dairy  industry,  stock  rearing,  fruit  culture,  and  all  related 
branches;  farmers  of  the  most  efficient  training,  and 
laborers  whose  deft  hands  are  the  proper  instruments  of 
the  strongest  brains  —  all  these  must  combine  to  give 
the  south  that  perfect  intensive  culture  which  she  will 
add  to  her  blessings  of  climate  and  soil  in  order  to  sup 
ply  the  fast  growing  demand  of  all  the  world  outside  for 


372  The  Brothers'  War 

her  especial  products.  Further,  as  everything  now 
seems  to  indicate,  the  southern  yield  of  the  more  impor 
tant  minerals  and  metals  will  lead  that  of  the  entire 
country.  Further  again,  the  bulk  of  transcontinental 
railroad  traffic  must  be  across  the  south  on  snow-free 
routes,  and  the  upbuilding  which  in  time  will  follow 
from  this  is  as  yet  incalculable.  And  when  the  inter- 
ocean  canal  connects  us  with  the  Pacific  trade  —  what 
new  impetus  will  this  give  to  our  development !  What 
needs  and  opportunities  there  will  then  be  for  skilled 
labor,  for  inventive  talent,  for  managerial  ability,  for 
every  element  of  a  most  highly  organized  community  of 
unwontedly  many  diversified  prospering  interests.  The 
demand  will  be  for  a  vast  population  of  the  very  best 
strain  and  breed,  knowing  the  best  methods  of  physical, 
moral,  and  self-subsisting  education  of  their  children, 
out  of  whom  will  come  the  best  of  all  workers  and  pro 
ducers.  To  attempt  to  do  the  required  tasks  of  the  new 
south  of  the  near  future  and  hold  our  own  against  the 
competition  of  the  world  —  to  try  to  do  these  with  negro 
laborers,  negro  farmers,  negro  producers,  negro  employ 
ers,  would  be  like  substituting  the  ox-wagon  for  the  pres 
ent  railroad  freight  train.  Nay,  it  would  be  more  like 
one  with  a  wooden  leg,  and  a  millstone  around  his  neck, 
offering  to  run  against  a  trained  racer.  The  negro  laborer, 
farmer,  manufacturer,  and  contractor  show  more  clearly 
every  day  that  they  are  hopelessly  outclassed  in  the 
struggle  with  white  competitors.  As  a  body  where 
they  now  are  they  are  becoming  useless  and  an  incubus. 
They  will  soon  be  still  more  in  the  way,  and  a  more 
serious  hindrance  to  southern  development.  They  keep 
back  the  immigration  which  is  especially  called  for. 
That  is  the  immigration  of  northern  and  European 
farmers,  producers,  and  manufacturers  of  all  kinds  to 
teach  us  their  advanced  methods,  and  the  most  skilled 


The  Race  Question  -  -  Introductory     373 

labor  in  every  department  to  stimulate  with  example 
our  native  white  labor  to  its  highest  accomplishment. 
The  northern  people  would  come  south  very  largely  if 
there  were  no  negroes  here.  Their  desire  to  come 
increases  steadily,  and  so  does  our  desire  to  have  them 
come.  The  whites  of  both  sections  naturally  co-operate 
more  and  more  earnestly  to  effect  their  joint  wishes. 
The  disinclination  of  the  United  States  supreme  court  to 
overturn  the  recent  anti-negro  amendments  of  the  con 
stitutions  of  southern  States,  and  the  palpably  growing 
favor  showed  these  amendments  at  the  north  are  very 
significant  signs  that  the  south  is  to  be  made  more  to 
the  liking  of  northern  settlers. 

Since  the  last  sentence  was  written  that  court  has 
ruled  it  to  be  a  crime,  punishable  severely,  to  hold  one 
to  the  performance  of  a  contract  to  pay  his  debt  by 
laboring  for  you.1  The  average  negro  has  no  resource 
but  credit  on  the  faith  of  such  a  contract.  So  soon  as 
it  becomes  generally  known  that  he  cannot  be  lawfully 
held  to  its  performance,  the  credit  will  be  denied.  As 
has  been  suggested  to  me  by  an  observant  and  far-seeing 
man,  the  decision  overturns  the  main  pillar  of  the 
negro's  subsistence.  It  will  powerfully  favor  northern 
immigration,  as  well  as  the  substitution  of  white  for 
black  labor  —  that  is,  if  it  is  vigorously  enforced. 

7.  I  believe  that  the  two  races  together,  in  the  same 
community  as  they  are  now  in  the  south,  are  oil  and 
water.  Meditate  the  course  and  portent  of  these  facts. 
Immediately  upon  emancipation  the  negroes  set  up 
their  own  churches  and  schools;  they  manifested  ap 
proval  of  the  separate  passenger  car  for  themselves, 
politely  hinting  in  season  that  the  whites  ought  to  be 
kept  out  of  it ;  and  they  influenced  the  planter  to  re 
move  their  cabins  out  of  sight  and  hearing  of  the  Big 
i  Clyatt  v.  United  States,  March  13,  1905. 


374  The  Brothers'  War 

House.  They  showed  a  great  disinclination,  the  men 
to  do  agricultural  work  by  the  year  for  standing  wages, 
the  women  to  hire  as  house  servants.  It  was  some 
while,  before  the  whites  really  recognized  this  drift  of 
the  negro  towards  segregation,  when  many  of  them  — 
especially  the  wives  and  mothers  —  gave  the  rein  to 
much  unreasonable  resentment.  Now,  if  you  but  know 
how  to  look,  you  will  find  everywhere  the  proofs  of 
deepening  antagonism.  The  black  driver  will  not  see 
even  a  white  lady  —  not  to  mention  a  man  —  on  the 
crossing,  but  he  will  always  see  a  negro  of  either  sex. 
The  face  of  the  white  inconveniently  stepping  aside 
flushes  with  momentary  anger.  If  your  colored  servant 
tells  you  there  is  a  lady  at  the  door  you  may  know  it  is 
a  negro  woman ;  he  never  calls  a  "  white  'oman "  a 
lady.  A  negro  woman  is  prone  to  make  the  most 
prominent  white  lady  give  the  street.  In  Atlanta,  a 
negro  man  or  a  white  boy  cannot  safely  go  at  night 
the  former  through  the  factory  white  settlement, 
the  latter  through  Summer  Hill,  a  negro  residence 
quarter.  I  have  been  informed  that  where  the  mill 
operatives  of  Anderson,  South  Carolina,  have  their 
cottages,  there  is  conspicuously  posted,  "  Nigger,  don't 
let  the  sun  go  down  on  you  here."  I  hear  that  the 
same  is  true  of  certain  places  in  the  Texas  Panhandle ; 
also  that  a  negro  settlement  in  the  Indian  territory  dis 
plays  a  similar  warning  to  the  white  man.1  Parties  of 
black  and  white  children  meeting  on  unfrequented 
streets  of  Atlanta  nearly  always  exchange  opprobrious 
language,  often  throw  stones  at  one  another,  and  some 
times  fight  —  a  proof  so  significant  that,  whenever  I 
see  it,  it  always  makes  me  serious.  The  most  decided 
change  from  old  times  that  I  note  is  that  white  society 
everywhere  proscribes  mixed  sexual  intercourse  and 
1  Possibly  this  is  the  village  of  Boley,  mentioned  in  the  next  chapter. 


The  Race  Question  —  Introductory     375 

the  procreation  of  mulattoes  with  rapidly  increasing 
severity.  The  advocate  of  mixed  marriages  is  more 
and  more  regarded  as  a  fiend.  The  white  woman 
seized  by  a  negro  man  —  how  gladly  would  she  change 
place  with  the  victim  of  the  torturing  savage  or  of  the 
tiger  that  would  mangle  and  eat  her  alive !  This 
menace  is  everywhere,  and  naturally  it  is  magnified  by 
excited  imagination.  It  increases  in  fact.  The  trial  of 
negroes  for  capital  offences  was  given  the  superior 
court  of  Georgia  in  1850.  From  then  until  the  end  of 
the  brothers'  war  but  two  cases  of  rape  of  white  women 
by  negroes  are  in  the  supreme  court  reports ; 1  and  I 
never  heard  of  but  two  other  cases  occurring  in  that 
time.  But  there  have  been  many  since.  It  steadily 
becomes  more  frequent.  Women  more  and  more  dread 
to  be  left  alone.  And  now  there  is  hardly  a  man  in  the 
Black  Belt  who,  when  he  is  to  be  a  night  away  from 
wife,  daughters,  mother,  and  sisters,  without  help  at  call, 
does  not  have  uncomfortable  thoughts  of  the  sooty 
desecrator.  The  increasing  effect  of  these  multiplying 
outrages  and  the  increasing  horror  which  they  cause  is 
proved  by  a  fact  which  ought  to  receive  more  intelligent 
recognition  from  everybody.  This  fact  is  that  lynching 
of  a  negro  for  rape,  and  lately  for  other  crimes  of  vio 
lence  against  whites,  whether  in  the  south  or  in  the 
north,  seems  to  be  every  time  marked  with  a  greater 
outburst  of  popular  fury.  The  public  grows  more 
decidedly  anti-negro.  They  give  as  little  heed  to  the 
appeals  of  the  papers  in  these  matters  as  they  do  to  the 
editorials  always  advocating  the  projects  of  the  machine 
and  corporations.  The  mob  sweeps  aside  the  military. 
The  military  will  not  load  its  rifles.  If  they  were  loaded 
it  would  probably  refuse  to  fire,  or  would  fire  into  the 

1  They  are  Stephen,  a  slave,  v.  State,  2  Ga.  225 ;  Jesse,  a  slave,  v. 
State,  20  Ga.  161. 


376  The  Brothers'  War 

air.  A  few  exclaim  against  lawlessness,  while  it  is  plain 
that  the  great  mass  of  the  whites  do  not  really  condemn 
in  their  hearts. 

Let  us  try  to  understand  the  real  cause  of  these 
things.  The  plainest  parallel  that  occurs  to  me  is  the 
riots  and  violence  excited  by  attempts  to  execute  the 
fugitive  slave  law.  The  greatest  of  our  southern  states 
men  misunderstood.  What  they  thought  to  be  lawless 
ness  was  in  fact  the  struggle  of  nature  by  which  the 
social  organism  of  the  United  States  expelled  all  cause 
of  dissolution.  These  hostile  demonstrations  of  the  day 
against  negroes  are,  as  they  seem  to  me,  far  other  than 
acts  of  unenlightened  and  ignorant  race  prejudice,  to 
which  some  writers  ascribe  them.  They  indicate,  I 
think,  another  struggle  of  nature  to  expel  a  foreign  and 
death-breeding  substance  out  of  the  American  body 
politic ;  they  are  each  the  protest  of  the  self-preserving 
instincts  against  keeping  the  negro  with  us  to  counteract 
our  progress,  to  debase  our  politics,  to  corrupt  our 
blood,  to  injure  us  more  than  even  successful  secession 
could  have  done.  How  aptly  has  Matthew  Arnold  said, 
"  O  man,  how  true  are  thine  instincts,  how  overhasty 
thine  interpretation  of  them  !  " 

8.  Plainly  the  disparity  of  the  negro  in  the  deadly 
struggle  with  the  white  over  every  resource  of  subsist 
ence  fast  becomes  greater ;  plainly  does  his  stay  in  the 
south  more  and  more  injure  both  sections;  plainly 
under  the  effects  of  hard  life,  growing  idleness  and 
growing  crime,  increasing  ravages  of  disease,  and  the 
naturally  engendered  feeling  of  helplessness,  the  average 
negro  in  the  lower  class  gravitates  downwards ;  plainly 
this  negro  ought  to  have,  in  a  sphere  of  his  own,  oppor 
tunity  and  stimulus  for  self-recovery  and  progress. 
Plainly  whites  and  negroes  ought  to  be  separated.  The 
latter  seriously  clog  the  evolution  of  the  desired  south- 


The  Race  Question  -  -  Introductory     377 

ern  labor  class,  and  the  southern  whites  completely 
exclude  the  negroes  from  public  life.  The  two  are 
really  each  different  communities  in  juxtaposition,  but 
not  united.  You  may  think  of  them  as  plants,  one  of 
which  has  a  diseased  root,  and  the  other  has  its  top 
kept  in  the  dark  and  out  of  the  sun.  Both  these  evils 
result  unavoidably  from  keeping  the  two  races  together. 
So  let  us  give  the  negro  his  own  State  in  our  union. 
That  will  allow  the  root  of  the  one  plant  to  get  well,  and 
it  will  give  the  top  of  the  other  permanently  to  the  sun. 

We  are  rich  enough  and  have  land  enough  to  give 
the  negro  this  State,  which  is  his  due  from  us.  His 
especial  need  is  to  exercise  political  and  civil  privileges, 
in  his  own  community,  all  the  way  up  from  town 
meeting  to  congress. 

If  something  like  this  is  not  done  it  is  extremely 
probable  that  the  great  mass  of  the  lower  class  of  the 
negroes  will  die  out.  Let  not  this  crime  be  committed 
by  the  American  nation. 

9.  We  should  be  extremely  liberal  to  the  negro  in 
education  —  in  primary,  in  industrial,  and  also  in  the 
higher.      Especially  ought  we  to  combine  the  second 
with  the  first,  and  give  it  the  lead  for  both  races. 

10.  All  the  southern  states  should  at  once  by  proper 
constitutional  and  legal  provisions  substitute  judicial  for 
mob  lynching. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  RACE  QUESTION  —  THE  SITUATION  IN  DETAIL 

THE  distinction  between  the  two  classes  of  south 
ern  negroes,  glanced  at  in  the  last  chapter,  is  to 
be  always  kept  in  mind  —  at  the  beginning,  in 
the  middle,  and  at  the  end,  of  our  discussion.  Its  im 
portance  commands  that  we  say  something  of  it  here. 
Consider  how  enormously  the  two  differ  in  numbers. 
Five  per  cent  of  these  negroes,  that  is,  some  four  hun 
dred  thousand,  in  the  upper ;  ninety-five  per  cent,  that  is, 
seven  million  and  four  hundred  thousand,  in  the  lower 
class.  The  latter,  being  nineteen  times  as  large  as  the 
other,  first  demands  attention. 

In  the  country  many  of  the  men  are  croppers.  A 
group  of  negroes  —  generally  parents  and  children  —  do 
the  labor  of  preparation,  cultivation,  and  gathering,  while 
the  owner  contributes  the  land,  necessary  animals,  and 
feed  for  the  latter.  The  croppers  get  half  the  crop,  and 
the  land  owner  half.  The  latter  retains  out  of  their  half 
whatever  he  has  advanced  the  croppers.  The  advances 
must  be  limited  with  firmness,  otherwise  they  will  cause 
loss.  These  croppers  are  the  great  bulk  of  the  agricul 
tural  laborers.  So  few  of  the  men  work  for  standing 
wages  that  they  need  not  be  noticed.  In  the  towns  the 
men  subsist  upon  day  labor,  the  pay  of  which  ranges 
from  50  cents  to  $1.25.  It  hardly  averages  80  cents. 
Some  of  the  women,  both  in  country  and  town,  take 
places  as  house  servants  and  nurses  at  weekly  wages 
that  vary  from  $i  to  $2  with  board.  The  growing  dis- 


The  Race  Question  —  in  Detail       379 

inclination  of  the  women  to  these  places  is  much  stronger 
in  the  country  than  in  town.  In  country  and  town  the 
women  do  laundry  for  the  whites  at  an  average  price 
per  family  of  a  dollar  a  week ;  and  they  get  jobs  of  sew 
ing,  cleaning  kitchen  utensils,  scrubbing,  etc.  In  the 
country  these  women  do  some  field  labor,  sometimes 
plowing,  often  hoeing.  If  trained  in  childhood  they 
make  expert  cotton-pickers.  But  the  women  agricul 
tural  workers  steadily  decrease  in  number. 

The  negro  has  inherited  from  a  thousand  generations 
of  forefathers,  bred  in  the  humid  and  enervating  tropical 
West  African  climate,  a  laziness  which  is  the  extreme 
contrary  of  Caucasian  energy  and  enterprise.1  Thus  we 
are  told  of  him  in  Jamaica,  "  In  many  cases  a  field  negro 
will  not  work  for  his  employer  more  than  four  days  a 
week.  He  may  till  his  own  plot  of  ground  on  one  of 
the  other  days  or  not  as  the  spirit  moves  him."  2  The 
first  Saturday  in  June,  1904,  I  saw  the  thriving  little 
town  of  Abbeville,  South  Carolina,  thronged  with  idle 
negroes  from  the  surrounding  plantations.  A  merchant, 
who  was  kept  busy  in  his  store,  offered  to  pay  several  of 
them  75  cents  to  cut  up  a  load  of  firewood  —  something 
more  than  the  market  price.  They  do  not  work  on 
Saturday  unless  compelled  by  something  unusual ;  and 
so  each  one  replied  at  once,  without  any  inquiry  if  the 
logs  were  large  or  small,  seasoned  or  not,  and  thus  finding 
whether  the  job  was  hard  or  easy,  that  the  weather  was 
too  hot.  And  yet  these  negroes  all  exhibited  in  their 
clothes  and  hungry  looks  unmistakable  signs  of  want. 
Those  that  superintend  the  gangs  working  for  contractors 
in  Atlanta  and  the  vicinity,  all  —  except  now  and  then 
one  who  has  managed  to  form  a  small  party  of  picked 
laborers  —  tell  me  that  it  is  very  seldom  that  a  negro 

1  See  Tillinghast,  The  Negro  in  Africa  and  America,  10-14. 

2  New  Encyc.  Britan.,  Article,  "  Jamaica." 


380  The  Brothers'  War 

can  be  induced  to  work  Saturday ;  if  that  does  happen  he 
will  make  up  his  lost  holiday  by  not  returning  to  work 
before  Tuesday.  Your  cook,  nurse,  maid,  or  black  ser 
vant  of  any  kind  will  every  now  and  then  suddenly  in 
convenience  you  by  taking  an  utterly  unnecessary  rest. 
When  Booker  Washington  was  starting  his  system  of 
industrial  training,  as  he  tells  us,  "  Not  a  few  of  the  fathers 
and  mothers  urged  that  because  the  race  had  worked  for 
250  years  or  more,  it  ought  to  have  a  chance  to  rest."  1 
The  negro  has  likewise  inherited  lack  of  forecast  and 
providence.  If  at  the  end  of  the  year  he  finds  himself 
with  a  small  purse  from  his  part  of  the  crop,  standing 
wages,  or  profits  from  a  tenancy,  he  will  often  squander 
much  of  it  for  a  top  buggy,  a  piano  which  none  of  his 
family  can  play,  or  expensive  furniture.  Those  in  the 
gangs  just  mentioned  always  want  to  fool  away  their 
money  before  it  is  made.  If  one  has  been  advanced  $4, 
and  his  wages  amount  to  $5,  he  will  hardly  ever  abridge 
his  holiday  by  turning  up  to  get  the  dollar  balance  when 
the  others  who  have  not  been  advanced  are  paid  Satur 
day  night.  He  will  waste  his  cash  on  watermelons  and 
fish  that  an  average  white  will  not  even  smell.  When 
forced  down  to  it  he  can  live  contentedly  upon  almost 
nothing.  A  very  large  proportion  of  both  sexes  are 
happy  upon  a  real  meal  every  two  or  three  days,  and  a 
sly  change  of  mate  every  two  or  three  weeks.  Toombs, 
who  was  always  looking  at  Cuffee,  pronounced  him 
"  rich  in  the  fewness  of  his  wants."  Bring  him  out  more 
clearly  to  yourselves  by  comparison  with  an  Irishman 
struggling  up  from  starvation  wages  of  hard  daily  work 
into  comfort  and  ease.  Reflect  over  the  only  success  a 
cotton  mill  has  had  with  black  labor,  which  was  due  to 
whipping  the  operatives  for  breach  of  duty.2 

1  Working  with  the  Hands,  40. 

2  Tillinghast,  book  cited  above,  180,  181.   Consider  the  quotation  there 


The  Race  Question  —  in  Detail       381 

In  Atlanta  —  which  of  course  is  but  like  other  south 
ern  cities  in  the  particular  now  to  be  mentioned  —  many 
of  the  men  live  upon  their  women.  It  is  a  common  say 
ing  that  you  cannot  keep  a  colored  cook  if  you  do  not 
allow  her  to  carry  the  keys.  There  is  great  complaint 
that  the  colored  washerwomen  help  their  dependents 
out  of  the  clothes.  The  criminal  class  of  negro  men, 
women,  and  children  is  large  and  growing  much  faster 
than  that  of  the  whites.  Two  very  striking  develop 
ments  are  the  negro  burglar  and  the  negro  footpad. 
There  are  many  breakings  and  entries  every  year  in 
Atlanta,  many  holdups  of  pedestrians,  and  nearly  all  of 
them  are  by  negroes.  Now  and  then  a  negro  snatches 
a  lady's  purse  from  her  on  the  street.  The  prisoners 
sent  to  the  Atlanta  stockade  during  the  twelve  months 
beginning  December  15,  1902,  were 

Colored.  Whites. 

Men 2325  1030 

Women 1168  100 

Boys 471  18 

3964  1148 

According  to  the  twelfth  census,  the  negro  population 
of  Atlanta  was  35,727,  and  the  white  54,090.  So,  while 
there  are  in  every  thousand  of  the  whites  21  of  these 
criminals,  there  are  in  every  thousand  of  the  blacks  no. 
But  the  case  is  worse  still.  About  an  equal  number  of 
convicts  escape  the  stockade  by  paying  fines.  Allow 
ance  for  this  will  much  increase  the  per  cent  of  negro  crim 
inals.  I  wish  I  could  get  the  approximate  number  whose 
fines  are  paid  by  their  employers,  white  friends,  mothers, 
wives,  and  other  relatives.  I  have  observed  facts  which 
make  me  confident  that  it  is  large.  The  number  of  boys 

made  from  Thurston,  the  negro  manager,  in  which  he  asserts  that  it  is 
only  by  this  means  that  negro  operatives  can  be  made  to  do  good  work. 


382  The  Brothers'  War 

that  in  one  year  were  sent  to  the  stockade  —  471  —  is  a 
most  important  fact,  showing  as  it  does  that  a  large  per 
cent  of  negroes  become  criminals  in  childhood.  Nearly 
all  of  these  boys  have  been  abandoned  by  their  fathers. 
There  are  just  as  many  abandoned  girls  in  the  city.  Of 
course  under  the  prevailing  conditions  the  proportion  of 
criminals  in  each  generation  must  increase  portentously. 
The  depth  of  the  negroes' debasement  is  shown  in  the 
impurity  of  the  women.  This  is  another  inheritance  from 
their  ancestors.  The  "  ancient  African  chastity  "  alleged 
by  Professor  DuBois,1  if  it  ever  existed,  was  entirely  pre 
historic.  A  white  who  has  not  been  bred  in  close  contact 
with  the  race  is  quite  unable  to  Understand  the  degree 
and  universality  of  this  impurity.  I  will  illustrate  by  a 
case  which  occurred  in  a  prosperous  town  of  Middle 
Georgia  not  very  long  before  I  settled  in  Atlanta.  A 
prominent  negro  preacher  had  been  caught  in  adultery. 
The  woman,  who  was  the  mother  of  several  children, 
and  her  husband,  were  both  members  of  the  same  church 
as  the  preacher,  and  of  unctuous  piety.  The  detection 
was  so  complete  and  certain,  and  it  had  immediately 
become  so  notorious  that  church  notice  was  unavoid 
able.  The  problem  was  how  to  whitewash  the  affair. 
The  office  of  a  lawyer  friend  of  mine  in  the  town 
last  mentioned  was  waited  on  by  a  member  of  the  church 
—  a  say-nothing  sort  of  negro,  who  always  applied  for 
leave  to  attend  the  meetings  at  which  the  preacher  was 
being  tried.  This  office  boy  had  returned  several  times 
with  the  news,  when  inquired  of,  that  nothing  had  been 
done.  At  last,  one  day  he  answered  that  they  had 
cleared  the  preacher.  My  friend  commanded  that  this 
be  explained.  The  darkie  said,  in  his  laconic  way, 
"  Well,  he  'fessed  de  act,  but  he  'scused  de  act."  "  How 
in  the  world  did  he  excuse  it?"  was  asked.  "He  said 
1  Souls  of  Black  Folk,  9. 


The  Race  Question  —  in  Detail      383 

his  heart  was  n't  in  it."  "  Were  you  fools  enough  to 
believe  that?"  was  ejaculated.  The  negro,  with  an  air 
as  superior  as  was  compatible  with  the  great  politeness 
of  his  race,  replied,  "  He  said  it  was  de  debble  dat  had 
his  body  dar;  but  all  de  time  his  soul  was  at  de  throne, 
praying  for  God's  people.  In  course  we  could  n't  blame 
him  for  what  de  debble  done." 

This  defence,  suggesting  the  make-believe  loan  of  his 
body  by  the  friar  in  the  Decameron  to  the  angel  Gabriel, 
which,  of  course,  had  never  been  heard  of  by  the  ac 
cused,  convinced  the  church,  willing  to  be  convinced. 
It  appeased  the  injured  husband,  willing  to  be  appeased. 
It  fully  vindicated  the  gay  clergyman  and  the  erring  sis 
ter,  who  were  in  effect  told  to  go  and  sin  no  more  with 
such  little  discretion. 

Had  this  case,  or  another  like  it,  occurred  at  that  time 
or  since  in  any  other  negro  church  of  that  region,  there 
would  have  been  acquittal  and  justification  of  the  ac 
cused,  although  perhaps  the  good  plea  and  the  right 
psychological  moment  to  make  it  might  not  have  been 
so  aptly  found.1 

The  habits  and  customs  of  the  race  mix  men  and 
women  always  and  everywhere;  and  in  these  oppor 
tunities  each  one  of  the  young  and  the  old,  married 
and  unmarried  of  both  sexes — of  even  children  just 
arrived  at  puberty  —  chases  a  short-lived  amour  with 
ever  eager  zest.2  The  blacker  the  Lothario  the  more 

1  During  the  years  after  the  war  until  the  end  of  1881,  when  I  came 
to  Atlanta,  I  kept  my  eye  upon  the  negro  preachers  in  the  country. 
Whenever  I  could  closely  observe  one  and  had  opportunity  of  sifting 
members  of  his  congregation,  I  generally  found  him  to  be  vir  gregis. 
My  acquaintances  tell  me  that  there  has  been  no  perceptible  change. 
Compare  what  Mr.  Edward  B.  Taylor,  a  northern  man,  now  residing  in 
Columbia,  S.  C.,  says  of  "the  immoral  negro  preacher"  in   The  Outlook 
of  July  1 6,  1904. 

2  William  Hannibal  Thomas,  a  negro  of  Massachusetts,  says  the  same 


384  The  Brothers'  War 

show  of  white  blood  he  seeks  in  his  fancies.  Now 
and  then  furious  desire  for  real  white  overmasters  him. 
Surprising  some  unattended  angel  of  a  girl  or  matron, 
he  chooses  to  see  Rome  and  then  die.  Her  avengers 
pour  kerosene  on  him  and  burn  him  to  a  crisp.  His 
lusty  fellows  think  to  themselves  what  Hermes,  in  the 
song  of  Demodocus,  says  to  Apollo  of  the  mishap  to 
Ares  and  golden  Aphrodite  —  that  is,  that  for  the  same 
brief  pleasure  they  would  each  gladly  endure  thrice  the 
penalty. 

Professor  DuBois  says  that  the  chastity  of  the  negro 
women  has  improved  so  greatly  "  that  even  in  the  back 
country  districts  not  above  nine  per  cent  of  the  popula 
tion  may  be  classed  as  distinctly  lewd."  1  Inquire  of  hon 
est  witnesses  who  have  good  opportunities  of  observing 
—  the  farmers,  small  and  large,  and  the  storekeepers,  in 
the  country,  those  who  do  contract  work  and  the  police 
in  the  cities  —  of  all  who  have  close  access  to  negroes 
at  all  times,  and  especially  at  night ;  and  the  concurring 
report  will  be  that  right  correction  of  Professor  DuBois' 
statement  just  given  cannot  stop  with  mere  inversion  of 
his  percentages ;  that  the  fact  is,  no  negroes  in  this 
lower  class  which  we  are  now  dealing  with  are  chaste 
except  those  whose  physical  condition  has  made  a  virtue 
of  necessity.2 

It  is  sadly  true  that  men  of  all  races  are  too  prone  to 
unchastity.  It  is  chaste  women  that  give  human  amelio- 

as  to  the  early  corruption  of  children  and  "marital  immoralities"  both  of 
the  poor,  the  ignorant,  and  the  degraded  among  the  freed  people,  and 
also  of  those  who  assume  to  be  educated  and  refined.  Quoted  by  Mr. 
Page,  The  Negro ;  The  Southerner's  Problem,  82-84. 

1  Encyc.  Am.  Article,  "Negro  in  America." 

2  Noticing  Mr.  Page's  book  just  mentioned,  Professor  DuBois  treats 
William  Hannibal  Thomas  as  utterly  unworthy  of  credit.     All  of  us  in 
the  south  familiar  with  negroes  know  that  Thomas's  statement  quoted 
by  Mr.  Page  is  unqualifiedly  true. 


The  Race  Question  —  in  Detail       385 

ration  its  main  propulsion ;  for  they  make  every  husband 
to  know  that  the  children  around  his  fireside  are  his  own. 
If  I  were  asked  in  what  one  particular  had  my  life-long 
comparison  convinced  me  that  the  two  races  are  farthest 
apart,  I  would  unhesitatingly  answer,  in  the  character  of 
the  women  of  each  —  the  average  white  woman,  from 
her  marriage  on,  forgetting  all  other  men  but  her  hus 
band,  the  black  wife  always  with  a  paramour,  if  to 
be  had. 

The  tie  which  holds  the  family  stanch  is  wanting. 
The  men  often  cast  aside  their  domestic  burdens,  and 
begin  their  lives  over  in  a  distant  region  with  a  new 
woman.  The  wife  and  mother  left  behind  does  not 
mope.  She  has  generally  prearranged  satisfactorily 
with  another  man. 

Disease  is  making  great  ravages  in  this  lower  class  of 
negroes.  I  never  knew  of  a  case  of  consumption  among 
the  slaves,  and  I  can  recall  but  one  serious  case  of 
pneumonia.  Now  these  two  diseases  slay  the  negroes 
by  hundreds.  Before  the  war  the  negro  was  regarded 
as  immune  from  yellow  fever,  and  almost  immune  from 
dangerous  malarial  affections.  He  has  lost  his  charm 
against  these  also.  There  has  been  a  dreadful  increase 
of  insanity  among  them.  The  only  ante-bellum  case 
that  I  can  recall  was  due  to  an  accidental  injury  of 
the  head. 

It  is  but  natural  that  the  death  rate  among  the  negroes 
mounts  fearfully.  Their  great  multiplication  has  far  out 
run  their  reasonable  means  of  subsistence.  We  note 
what  a  heavy  burden  a  large  family  is  to  a  man  in  hard 
times.  I  must  believe  that  the  thirteenth  census  will 
show  a  still  greater  negro  death-rate. 

We  shall  sum  up  as  to  this  lower  class  after  we  have 
described  the  displacement  of  black  by  white  labor. 

Now  we  must  consider  the  upper  class.  We  need 

25 


386  The  Brothers'  War 

look  only  at  its  main  divisions,  to  wit,  the  negro  farmers, 
and  the  well-to-do  urban  negroes. 

The  rose-colored  statements  of  Professor  DuBois  as 
to  the  former  cannot  impose  upon  residents  of  the 
south.1  I  shall  begin  with  the  negro  farm  owners  of 
Georgia.  In  what  he  says  of  them  in  the  second  Bulle 
tin  mentioned  in  the  last  footnote  he  hardly  ever  looks 
away  from  the  report  of  the  comptroller-general  of  the 
State.  I  shall  deal  with  relevant  facts  about  which  the 
comptroller-general  is  not  required  to  concern  himself — 
and  of  which  the  census  takes  but  little  note.  Where 
agricultural  land  commands  only  a  few  dollars  per  acre 
a  large  part  of  it  will  get  into  possession  of  purchasers 
under  title-bond  who  expect  to  work  it  and  pay  for  it  in 
annual  instalments  out  of  its  produce.  Of  course  the 
vendor  sees  to  it  that  he  himself  escapes  taxation  on 
this  land,  and  so  the  purchasers,  although  they  may 
have  paid  him  but  a  trifle  or  nothing  at  all,  are  assessed 
as  if  they  were  the  real  owners,  while  the  vendors  are 
retaining  the  title  as  security.  Soon  after  the  war  many 
a  white  planter,  in  order  to  get  out  of  a  failing  business 
and  procure  capital  for  something  else,  sold  his  land  in 
whole  or  part.  He  could  find  no  purchaser  but  some 
exceptional  negro ;  and  the  latter  could  buy  only  on 
credit.  Much  of  the  lands  so  sold  had  to  be  retaken 
because  the  purchasers  failed  to  meet  their  payments. 
It  was  my  observation  when  I  left  Greene  county  twenty- 
three  years  ago  that  in  that  and  the  adjoining  counties 
the  number  of  negro  owners  of  agricultural  land  was 
decreasing,  and  it  is  my  information  that  such  is  now 

1  That  part  of  Department  of  Commerce  and  Labor  Bureau  Census, 
Bulletin  8,  called  "  The  Negro  Farmer,"  is  by  him.  Consider  the  extrav 
agant  claims  made  therein  for  the  magnitude  of  negro  farming  in  the 
United  States  in  the  comment  on  Table  xxxv.  p.  92.  Professor  DuBois 
is  also  author  of  the  "  Negro  Landholder  of  Georgia,"  Bulletin  of  Depart 
ment  of  Labor,  No.  35,  July,  1901. 


The  Race  Question --in  Detail       387 

the  case.  This  indicates  an  important  fact  not  shown  in 
the  reports  of  the  comptroller-general,  to  wit,  that  a 
large  number  of  the  negroes  appearing  therein  as  owners 
are  really  not  owners,  and  are  losing  their  holdings. 

The  next  fact  to  be  mentioned  is  that,  as  I  learn  from 
residents,  many  farms  of  which  a  negro  had  acquired 
the  fee  are  heavily  encumbered,  and  often  fall  to  the 
local  merchants. 

Further,  as  Professor  DuBois  states,  "  the  land  owned 
by  negroes  is  usually  the  less  fertile,  worn-out  tracts."  l 

According  to  the  comptroller's  report  for  1903  the 
acres  of  white  ownership  are  29,762,259,  returned  at  a 
value  of  $121,629,094;  which  is  $4.139  per  acre.  The 
per  cent  of  the  total  value  owned  by  the  blacks  is  4.07. 
This  result  —  that  the  negroes  own  a  fraction  over  four 
per  cent  of  the  improved  lands  of  Georgia — must  be 
corrected  by  proper  deduction  for  purchase  money 
debts,  and  also  for  encumbrances.  It  must  be  further 
corrected  by  another  deduction.  The  negro's  land  is 
considerably  below  the  average  of  the  rest  in  quality 
and  market  value.  Yet  while  the  white  returns  at  $4.08 
an  acre,  the  other  returns  at  $4.13.  This  higher  valua 
tion  is  not  because  of  conscientious  avoidance  of  tax- 
dodging.  It  comes  from  that  optimistic  exaggeration 
characterizing  the  race,  which  is  vividly  illustrated  in 
Booker  Washington's  gravely  stating  that  the  love  of 
knowledge  by  the  average  negroes  of  the  south  has 
become  the  "  marvel  of  mankind,"  2  and  in  the  extrava 
gant  assertion  of  Professor  DuBois  as  to  their  chastity 
commented  on  a  few  pages  back. 

There  are  a  few  negro  owners  of  farming  lands  that 
are  prospering,  but  I  am  credibly  informed  that  as  a 
class  they  are  falling  behind. 

1  Bulletin  8,  before  cited,  75. 

2  Article,  "  Negro  Education,"  Encyclopedia  Americana. 


388  The  Brothers'  War 

The  tenants  —  the  renters,  as  they  are  commonly 
called  —  are  the  more  prosperous  negro  farmers.  The 
whites  hold  on  to  their  lands  more  firmly  than  they 
did  some  years  ago,  and  the  tenantry  class  both  of 
whites  and  blacks  is  becoming  larger.  The  whites  in 
the  Black  Belt  all  believe  that  the  negroes  generally 
belong  to  societies,  in  which  they  have  bound  themselves 
not  to  hire  to  the  former  as  house  servants  or  for  stand 
ing  wages  except  when  they  cannot  otherwise  subsist. 
So  most  of  the  cotton  is  made  by  tenants  and  croppers. 
They  grade  as  many  bad  and  mediocre,  and  a  few  good. 
The  latter  work  with  a  will,  and  make  fair  crops.  They 
send  their  children  off  to  expensive  schools.  When 
they  die  the  property  they  have  accumulated  is  dis 
tributed  and  squandered,  and  a  new  tenant  —  generally, 
of  late  years,  a  white  —  succeeds. 

It  is  to  be  observed  everywhere  that  some  reliable 
white  man  is  generally  backing  or  superintending  a 
negro  farmer  that  can  get  credit.  The  negro  farmers, 
in  almost  any  large  county  in  the  Black  Belt  that  you 
may  select,  that  are  an  exception  can  usually  be  counted 
on  the  fingers  of  one  hand. 

Their  implements  and  methods  are  primitive;1  and 
they  employ  hardly  any  labor  except  that  of  their  own 
families.2  As  soon  as  the  negro  farmer's  children  have 
grown  up  they  leave  him;  the  negro  laborers  in  his 
neighborhood  become  more  idle  every  year,  and  they 
become  also  more  scarce.  It  is  not  to  be  thought  of 
that  he  employ  white  labor.  This  class  will  give  no 
help  to  the  new  agriculture,  which  I  have  glanced  at  in 
the  last  chapter. 

Twenty-odd  years  ago  when  I  left  the  planting  section, 
the  white  landowners  all  preferred  negro  tenants.     But 
white   tenants  are  now  preferred.     They  do  not  send 
1  Professor  DuBois,  Bulletin  8,  cited  above,  73.  2  Id.  77. 


The  Race  Question  —  in  Detail       389 

their  children  to  school  as  much  as  the  negroes  do,  but 
keep  them  at  work  while  the  hoeing,  which  is  the  first 
main  thing  to  the  cotton  farmer,  and  the  gathering, 
which  is  the  second  and  last  and  greatest  by  far,  are 
unfinished.  The  negroes'  hoeing  and  other  cultivation 
are  bad ;  and  after  the  crop  is  laid  by  until  Christmas, 
during  which  time  comes  the  all-important  laborious 
cotton-picking,  they  spend  so  much  of  their  nights  at 
church  they  are  incapacitated  from  doing  good  work. 
They  lose  much  time  by  going  to  camp-meetings  in  the 
late  summer  and  early  autumn,  and  riding  on  railroad 
excursion  trains  at  every  opportunity.  The  white 
tenants  and  their  families,  by  careful  "  chopping  out " 
and  hoeing,  get  the  proper  "  stand "  and  they  pick 
clean ;  the  negroes  fall  behind  in  both  respects.  The 
bettering  credit  of  the  white  steadily  hits  the  negro 
harder.  The  only  tenants  who  are  good  for  the  rent 
are  the  class  a  few  of  whom  have  cash  of  their  own  and 
the  rest  can  get  credit  with  the  local  merchant  for  neces 
sary  supplies.  Such  tenants  the  landowners  seek  after, 
and  find  every  year  more  and  more  among  the  whites, 
and  less  and  less  among  the  blacks. 

Every  year  a  larger  part  of  the  staple  crops  of  the 
south  is  made  by  whites.  The  negroes  have  lately 
decreased  in  Kentucky.  Mr.  Tillinghast  brings  forward, 
from  Hoffman,  weighty  proofs  that  in  the  State  just 
mentioned,  which  has  just  become  the  principal  seat  of 
tobacco  growing,  and  also  in  the  largest  yielding 
counties  of  Virginia,  that  black  labor  constantly  grows  less 
of  the  crop.1  He  uses  Hoffman,  too,  to  show  that  white 
labor  is  slowly  expelling  black  from  rice  production.2 
The  old  south  believed  that  rice  culture  was  sure  death 
to  the  white.  Mr.  Tillinghast  quotes,  as  to  the  greatest 
agricultural  product  of  the  south,  this  from  Professor 

1  Book  cited,  183-185.  _a  Id.  184. 


390  The  Brothers*  War 

Wilcox:  "  It  would  probably  be  a  conservative  state 
ment  to  say  that  at  least  four-fifths  of  the  cotton  was 
.  .  .  in  1860  grown  by  negroes;  at  the  present  time 
[i.  e.,in  1899]  probably  not  one-half  is  thus  grown."1 

Compare  this  further :  "  He  [Hoffman]  finds  that 
*  with  less  than  one-half  as  large  a  colored  population  as 
Mississippi,  .  .  .  Texas  produced  in  1894  almost  three 
times  the  cotton  crop  of  the  former  State.'  Even  more 
significant  is  the  fact  that  with  almost  twice  the  colored 
population  of  1860,  Mississippi,  in  1894,  produced  less 
cotton  than  thirty-four  years  ago.'  "  2 

Very  significant  are  the  facts  lately  published  by  the 
Agricultural  Department  which  show  that  in  an  area  of 
some  sixty-three  per  cent  of  the  production,  the  white 
outpicks  the  negro.  "  One  hundred  and  fifty-two 
counties,  with  a  negro  population  amounting  to  seventy- 
five  per  cent  of  the  whole,  averaged  one  hundred  and 
eleven  pounds  per  day,  whereas  one  hundred  and  ninety- 
two  counties,  with  a  white  population  constituting  sev 
enty-five  per  cent  or  more  of  the  whole,  averaged  one 
hundred  and  forty-eight  pounds  per  day,"  3  that  is,  the 
white  picked  one-third  more  than  the  black.  There  are 
other  statements  in  this  bulletin  of  importance  here.  I 
can  give  this  one  only: 

"  In  the  Indian  Territory  and  Oklahoma,  where  the  whites 
represent  about  eighty  per  cent  of  the  population  (including 
Indians)  the  average  number  of  pounds  picked  is  greater  than 
in  any  of  the  States  except  Arkansas  and  Texas.  The  highest 
number  of  pounds  picked  in  any  State  is  one  hundred  and 
seventy-two  in  Texas,  the  counties  represented  having  a  white 
population  of  eighty  per  cent."  4 

In  Arkansas  the  population  of  the  counties  men 
tioned  was  fifty-nine  per  cent  white,  the  rest  negro. 

i  Book  cited,  184.  2  Id.  184. 

,  *  Bureau  of  Statistics —  Bulletin  No.  28,  p.  71.  *  Id.  72. 


The  Race  Question  —  in  Detail      391 

It  is  almost  certain  that  the  foregoing  estimates  do 
great  injustice  to  the  whites.  They  assume  that  there  is 
no  inferiority  of  the  negro  to  the  white  except  the  per 
diem  quantity  of  cotton  picked.  Ponder  the  statement 
as  to  a  county  of  Georgia  which  I  now  give. 

"According  to  the  ginners'  report,  Madison  county  made 
sixteen  thousand  bales  of  cotton  in  1902.  Its  negro  popula 
tion  is  about  three  thousand,  its  white,  twelve  thousand.  The 
negroes  are  one-fifth  and  the  whites  four-fifths,  and  out  of 
every  five  bales  the  negroes  ought  to  have  made  at  least  one 
and  the  whites  four.  But  the  former  do  not  average  as  well  as 
the  others.  The  white  who  runs  one  plow,  whose  wife  and 
children  do  the  hoeing  and  picking,  probably  makes  ten  bales. 
The  negro  who  runs  one  plow,  whose  wife  and  children  hoe 
and  pick,  hardly  makes  more  than  five  or  six  bales.  The 
greater  part  of  the  cotton  credited  to  negro  labor  is  made  by 
negroes  who  are  superintended  by  white  men." l 

Weighing  all  that  I  have  just  told,  I  am  as  sure  as  I 
can  be  of  anything  in  the  near  future,  that  the  negro 
will  soon  be  of  greatly  diminished  importance  as 
laborer,  cropper,  renter,  or  farming  landowner  in  the 
staples  of  southern  agriculture. 

There  are  other  kinds  of  property  than  improved 
lands  set  out  in  the  report  of  the  comptroller-general, 
such  as  $3,531,471  of  horses,  cattle,  and  stock  of  all 
kinds,  $810,553  of  plantation  and  mechanical  tools. 
Such  needs  no  separate  consideration.  These  holdings 

1  Extract  from  a  letter  of  Hon.  James  M.  Smith  to  the  author.  He  is, 
I  believe,  the  largest  planter  in  Georgia.  His  lands  lie  in  the  adjoining 
edges  of  Oglethorpe  county,  which  is  in  the  Black  Belt,  and  of  Madison 
county,  which  is  outside.  From  his  experience,  and  because  of  the  great 
accuracy  of  his  observation,  which  I  have  noted  for  nearly  forty  years,  I 
regard  him  as  better  qualified  than  any  one  else  who  can  be  suggested, 
to  give  a  correct  opinion  on  the  subjects  he  deals  with  in  the  quo 
tation.  Especially  do  I  emphasize  his  exceptional  advantages  for 
comparing  whites  and  negroes  as  farmers,  tenants,  croppers,  and  laborers 
for  standing  wages,  in  making  cotton. 


392  The  Brothers'  War 

do    not,  in  view  of  what  we  have  told,  give  the  negro 
farmer  any  strong  foothold. 

Nearly  all  that  remains  of  the  rural  upper  class  —  the 
negroes  in  trades,  professions,  mercantile  business,  etc. 
—  is  so  evidently  dependent  upon  the  masses  of  the 
lower  class,  now  gravitating  away  from  the  country  that 
the  most  of  it  can  be  incidentally  disposed  of  at  certain 
places  later  on  in  the  chapter  and  the  rest  be  treated  as 
negligible. 

The  "  city  or  town  property  "  of  the  negroes  of  Georgia, 
according  to  the  report  of  the  comptroller-general  for 
1903,  amounts  in  value  to  $44,668,620.  From  all  that  I 
can  learn,  while  it  is  largely,  it  is  considerably  less, 
encumbered  than  the  real  and  personal  property  of  the 
negro  farmers. 

A  large  admixture  of  Caucasian  blood  marks  nearly 
every  member  of  the  upper  class  both  in  country  and 
town.  I  note  that  occasionally  a  coalblack  acquires 
property,  on  which  his  miser  grip  is  tighter  than  that  of 
an  accumulating  Irishman ;  but  such  are  very  few. 
There  is  hardly  a  well-to-do  negro  in  work,  occupation, 
profession,  or  property,  who  is  not  several  shades  at 
least  removed  from  coalblack.  Mr.  Tillinghast  observes 
"  that  the  porters,  cooks,  and  waiters  on  a  Pullman  train 
are  usually  mulattoes,  while  the  laborers  in  the  gang  on 
the  roadbed  are  nearly  all  black."  1  In  this  day  when 
the  pictures  of  prominent  men  and  women  are  in  many 
illustrated  magazines  and  papers,  it  is  to  be  observed 
that  hardly  one  of  a  negro  shows  unmixed  blood.  Thus 
a  recent  monthly  contains  pictures  of  Judson  W.  Lyons, 
R.  H.  Terrell,  Kelly  Miller,  Archibald  H.  Grinke,  T. 
Thomas  Fortune,  Daniel  Murray,  and  Booker  Washing 
ton.2  Of  these  the  third  only,  to  my  eye,  seems  all 

1  Book  cited  above,  121,  122. 

2  The  Voice  of  the  Negro,  September,  1904  (Atlanta,  Ga.)  —  Con- 


The  Race  Question  —  in  Detail       393 

negro  ;  and  I  cannot  be  confident  that  he  is  wholly  with 
out  appreciable  white  blood.  His  head  has  the  shape 
of  a  white  man's. 

It  is  my  observation  that  a  negro  entirely  pure  in 
blood  hardly  ever  gets  out  of  the  lower  class ;  and  that 
if  he  does  he  is  much  more  unprogressive  than  an  aver 
age  member  of  the  upper  class.  Note  what  Bishop 
Holsey  says  of  how  amalgamation  with  the  white  im 
proves  the  descendants  of  the  blacks,  in  a  passage 
quoted  later  herein. 

This  upper  class  contains  only  persons  of  exceptional 
blood,  talent,  or  some  other  rare  fortune.  The  higher 
education,  and  the  education  which  is  now  best  of  all 
for  the  negro  —  industrial  education  —  is  for  this  little 
circle  only.  Hampton  and  Tuskegee  do  not  open  to  all 
comers.  Mr.  Tillinghast  convincingly  proves  that  those 
who  have  got  really  good  training  at  the  two  institutions 
just  named  are  far  above  the  average  negro  in  physical 
stamina,  education,  and  other  important  particulars.1  The 
graduates  go  forth,  not  to  benefit  their  brothers  in  the 
lower  class,  but  to  win  for  themselves  surer  and  higher 
standing  in  the  upper  class. 

Some  of  the  resources  which  this  urban  section  of  the 
upper  class  have  enjoyed  for  a  while  they  are  losing,  as 
I  shall  tell  when  I  hereinafter  summarize  the  details  of 
white  encroachment.  But  other  resources  open  to  them. 
Such  are  professions  like  dentists,  eye,  ear,  and  throat 

sider  picture  of  "  Board  of  Directors  of  the  True  Reformers'  Bank,  Rich 
mond,  Va.,"  in  number  of  same  magazine  for  November,  1904.  These 
directors  are  nine  in  all,  and  there  is  but  one  who  is  decidedly  black. 
Six  of  them  look  to  be  more  than  three-quarters  white.  The  number 
for  March,  1905,  contains  a  sketch  of  William  Edward  Burghardt  Du 
Bois,  Ph.D.,  stating  that  the  Professor's  ancestry  is  largely  white  and 
his  color  a  rich  brown.  The  picture  of  his  mother  shows  her  hair  to  be 
straight  and  her  complexion  bright. 
1  Book  cited  above,  213-215. 


394  The  Brothers'  War 

surgeons,  doctors,  barbers,  and  others  who  must  content 
themselves  with  only  colored  patronage ;  such  the  grow 
ing  retail  trade,  multiplying  boarding-houses,  restaurants, 
and  saloons,  finding  their  custom  exclusively  in  the  in 
creasing  negro  town  population.  The  number  of  negroes 
who  become  teachers,  lecturers,  preachers,  authors, 
etc.,  steadily  augments.  Other  resources  of  this  upper 
class  can  be  pointed  out,  but  it  needs  not  here.  Although 
nearly  always  when  the  father  who  has  struggled  up 
dies,  his  property,  as  we  saw  to  be  the  case  with  the 
negro  farmer,  goes,  and  no  child  succeeds  to  his  occupa 
tion,  there  is  perhaps  generally  compensation  for  his 
loss  by  the  accession  of  some  other  who  has  got  up  out 
of  the  lower  class  by  an  extraordinarily  lucky  jump.  It 
is  clear  that  the  class  is  without  the  wholesome  influence 
of  uninterrupted  inheritance,  from  generation  to  genera 
tion,  of  faculty  and  character  progressively  improving. 
Take  this  inheritance  away  from  the  men  and  women  of 
any  enlightened  nation  and  it  would  be  to  lower  them 
very  near  to  the  level  of  barbarism.  It  is  also  nearly 
certain  that  there  will  be  no  further  infusion  of  white 
blood  into  this  class,  by  reason  of  the  hostility  to  inter 
mixture  which  becomes  stronger  —  yea,  intenser  —  every 
year.  The  probable  consequence  will  be  the  dilution  of 
much  of  the  white  blood  now  in  the  upper  class  through 
the  lower  class  to  such  an  extent  that  it  will  prac 
tically  disappear.  But  some  of  it,  I  think,  will  persist, 
perhaps  increase  in  degree  —  preserved  by  the  aversion 
of  many  to  intermarriage  with  persons  less  white  than 
themselves,  and  occasional  intermarriage  with  white 
persons  in  northern  States. 

Exceptional  ones  of  this  class  enjoy  privileges  of  the 
higher  education,  afforded  by  schools  and  colleges  opu 
lently  endowed  by  private  persons,  which  education  is 
bringing  forth  fruit  in  teachers,  clergymen,  and  repre- 


The  Race  Question  —  in  Detail       395 

sentatives  of  the  learned  class.  There  are  already  some 
good  books,  as  well  as  sermons,  speeches,  poems,  essays, 
and  short  articles,  by  negroes  which  have  won  favorable 
opinion  in  our  literature ;  and  there  is  evidently  to  be 
steady  increase. 

There  is  among  some  of  this  urban  upper  class  the 
beginning  at  least  of  better  things  under  the  lead  of 
better  mothers.  We  must  not  be  unreasonable  in  our 
demands  that  these  women  who  carry  in  their  veins  a 
very  appreciable  proportion  of  polyandrous  blood  shall 
become  immaculately  chaste  at  once.  Leave  them  to 
the  influence  of  the  improving  society  in  which  they 
move;  to  the  noble  and  faithful  efforts  of  such  as  Mrs. 
Booker  Washington ;  their  persistent  imitation  of  white 
mothers;  the  teachings  of  the  really  Christian  pastors 
whom  the  negro  universities  are  beginning  to  send 
abroad  in  numbers  far  too  few ;  but  especially  of  all  to 
devoted  conjugal,  maternal,  and  domestic  duty.  This 
last  has  made  the  pigeon  mother  unconquerably  true  to 
her  life  mate.  It  will  do  the  same  for  the  negro  woman. 
—  Let  us  consider  the  class  further  for  a  moment. 

The  longer  you  look  at  it  with  unbefogged  eyes  the 
more  plainly  you  see  it  is  really  a  natural  aristocracy 
hugging  its  special  privileges  more  jealously  every  year, 
and  that  cleavage  in  interest,  affection,  and  destiny  be 
tween  it  and  the  other  class  goes  on  so  steadily  that  it 
must  after  some  little  while  yawn  in  the  sight  of  the 
entire  nation.  Here  in  Atlanta,  as  seems  to  be  the  case 
in  all  the  southern  cities,  there  are  respectable  negro 
districts  and  also  negro  slums.  The  latter  are  the  more 
numerous  and  far  more  populous.  The  inhabitants  of 
these  several  districts  are  almost  as  wide  apart  as  are 
the  whites  in  the  fashionable  circle  and  the  million  of 
poor  folk  without. 

I  must  postpone  my  final  contrast  of  these  two  classes 


396  The  Brothers*  War 

until  I  have  completed  what  remains  to  be  said  of  the 
displacement  of  black  by  white  labor.  For  a  few  years 
after  the  war  it  was  so  slow  moving  that  I  was  not  con 
fidently  aware  of  it.  Now  it  has  proceeded  so  far,  and 
so  much  accelerated  its  pace,  that  I  can  indicate  it  with 
something  like  accuracy.  In  the  thirteenth  chapter  I 
noted  its  beginning.  This  was  when  the  mother  and 
her  girls  took  upon  themselves  the  daily  indoor  work, 
and  the  father  and  sons  took  upon  themselves  the  out 
door  work,  morning,  noon,  and  night,  around  the  house 
and  the  horse-lot,  —  the  word  which  in  the  south  corre 
sponds  to  the  barnyard  of  the  northern  farmer.  Es 
pecially  significant  is  it  that  a  large  per  cent  of  the  white 
matrons  in  the  country  have  at  last  discarded  the  negro 
laundry -woman  and  habitually  themselves  use  the  wash- 
tub  for  their  families.  The  impulse  to  supplant  negro 
labor  showed  its  greatest  energy  where  the  black  popu 
lation  had  been  sparse.  I  have  heard  my  friend,  F.  C. 
Foster,  a  resident  of  Morgan  county,  often  mention  that 
what  were  before  the  war  the  rich  and  poor  sides  of  that 
county  have  become  interchanged ;  where  most  of  the 
large  slave-owners  lived  was  the  rich,  but  now  is  the 
poor  side;  and  the  other,  where  there  were  but  few 
slaves,  is  now  the  rich  side. 

I  see  many  proofs  in  every  quarter  that  the  whites  of 
the  Black  Belt  have  commenced  to  learn  good  lessons 
from  their  neighbors  outside,  and  show  every  year  a 
greater  self-reliance.  Many  more  causes  than  I  have 
space  to  set  down  conspire  to  increase  this  self-reliance. 
The  small  farmer  must,  by  himself  or  his  wife  and  chil 
dren  or  white  help,  do  such  things  as  these :  work  his 
brood  mare;  care  for  his  blooded  stock,  fine  poultry,  and 
bees ;  handle  his  reaper,  mower,  and  more  expensive 
tools  and  implements  ;  give  all  necessary  attention  to  his 
orchards  and  larger  and  smaller  fruits,  —  industries  which, 


The  Race  Question --in  Detail       397 

with  that  of  the  dairy,  are  now  pushing  forward  with 
mounting  energy ;  for  he  has  learned  that  the  average 
negro  cannot  be  trusted  in  these  and  many  other  things 
which  can  be  suggested. 

I  must  not  overstate  the  advance  of  white  production 
and  labor  upon  black  in  the  country.  In  the  regions  of 
densest  negro  populations  the  whites  show  a  backward 
ness  in  taking  to  work  that  is  discouraging.  A  very 
observant  man  familiar  with  Jackson  and  Madison  coun 
ties  of  Georgia,  both  of  which  are  out  of  the  Black  Belt, 
and  who  now  lives  where  negroes  outnumber  the  whites, 
not  long  ago  made  this  comparison,  while  answering  my 
inquiries :  "  In  Jackson  and  Madison  the  whites  work. 
A  farmer  who  runs  but  one  plow  does  all  the  plowing. 
He  hires  but  one  negro.  In  my  present  county  the  one- 
horse  farmer  always  hires  two  negroes,  one  to  plow 
and  the  other  to  hoe,  and  the  only  work  he  does  is  to 
boss  them."  But  the  negroes  are  going  away  from 
many  parts,  in  fact  from  nearly  all,  of  the  Black  Belt. 
Wherever  they  have  become  scarce,  the  whites  go  to 
work ;  and,  as  is  now  occurring  in  that  part  of  Greene 
county  called  "The  Fork,"  and  in  places  in  adjoining 
counties,  the  lands  rise  greatly  in  market  value.  In 
many  parts  of  Oglethorpe,  Wilkes,  Taliaferro,  and  Greene 
counties,  where  negroes  were  doing  practically  all  the 
agricultural  labor  when  I  came  to  Atlanta,  I  learn  that 
many  white  boys  are  becoming  good  all-around  workers. 
It  surprised  me  greatly  to  be  told  that  in  this  region  in 
different  places  the  white  women  and  children,  as  soon 
as  the  dew  is  off  in  the  morning,  go  to  cotton  picking, 
and  they  become  so  efficient  that  often  no  extra  labor 
need  be  hired  to  finish  that  greatest  task  of  all  to  the 
farmer.  Before  the  war,  all  of  us  white  boys  picked  just 
enough  of  cotton  to  learn  that  our  backs  could  never  be 
made  to  stand  picking  all  day.  The  whites  now  beating 


398  The  Brothers*  War 

the  negro  in  what  we  once  thought  he  only  could  do, 
and  white  women  in  the  old  slave  regions  doing  the 
family  laundry,  —  these  begin  a  marvellous  economic 
revolution. 

The  cotton  mills  and  other  manufactories  rapidly 
springing  up  in  many  southern  localities  are  developing 
a  class  of  white  operatives.  Mining  of  various  kinds  is 
on  the  increase.  Stone,  slate,  and  marble  cutting,  cabi 
net  making,  and  other  trades  attract  greater  numbers  to 
follow  them.  White  railroad  employees,  printers,  en 
gravers,  stenographers,  typewriters,  and  those  in  numer 
ous  other  gainful  occupations,  grow  in  numbers.  White 
women  and  girls  stream  to  work  for  employers  every 
morning.  In  all  places,  if  you  but  look  long  enough, 
you  catch  sight  of  swelling  crowds  of  the  race  who  once 
lived  almost  entirely  from  slave  labor  now  doing  their 
own  labor. 

I  will  close  what  I  have  to  say  of  this  part  of  the  sub 
ject  by  observations  of  Atlanta.  When  I  settled  here, 
the  barbers,  shoe  repairers,  blacksmiths,  band-musicians, 
sick-nurses,  seamstresses,  ostlers,  and  carriage-drivers 
were,  so  far  as  I  noted,  black  almost  without  exception. 
Now  the  first  five  are  nearly  all  white,  and  whites  steadily 
multiply  in  the  rest,  although  they  are  far  from  being  in 
a  majority.  The  only  expulsion  of  white  by  negro  labor 
that  I  have  noted  is  the  substitution  by  the  bicycle  mes 
senger  service  and  the  telegraph  of  negro  for  white 
messengers,  made  not  long  ago.  These  messenger  ser 
vices  thrive  by  exploiting  child  labor.  By  the  change 
mentioned  they  got  much  larger  and  stronger  boys  — 
often  grown-up  ones  —  for  the  same  price  which  they 
used  to  pay  white  children  a  year  or  two  older  than 
mere  tots.  Against  the  recent  loss  just  told  I  have  these 
two  recent  gains  of  the  whites  to  tell.  There  had  always 
been  only  negro  waiters  in  the  restaurants.  In  some  of 


The  Race  Question  —  in  Detail       399 

them  the  eaters  at  the  lunch  counters  are  now  served  by 
a  white  man  standing  behind  it;  and  what  he  needs,  if 
it  is  not  kept  in  store  so  near  that  he  can  reach  it,  is 
brought  to  him,  at  his  command,  by  a  negro,  whom  you 
may  call  his  waiter.  This  negro  also  wipes  off  the 
counter.  After  we  became  used  to  white  barbers  we 
generally  preferred  them  to  the  black  ones.  And  I  note 
that  a  growing  majority  of  those  who  frequent  the  coun 
ters  like  the  white  waiters,  although  I  now  and  then 
hear  a  growler  say  that  he  would  rather  have  a  waiter 
that  he  can  reprimand  and  speak  to  as  he  pleases. 
Some  of  the  restaurants  begin  to  advertise  that  their 
help  is  all  white.  With  the  superior  alertness  and  quick 
ness  of  his  race,  a  white  behind  the  counter  accomplishes 
more  than  twice  as  much  as  the  former  black.  To  use  a 
common  saying,  the  white  waiters  keep  at  active  work 
all  their  twelve  hours  as  if  they  were  fighting  fire,  while 
the  negroes  commanded  by  them  take  things  easy. 
Every  one  of  the  whites  is  constantly  on  the  lookout  for 
a  better  place ;  and  generally  he  manages  somehow,  after 
a  short  while,  to  get  it.  One  who  now  serves  me  studies 
bookkeeping  two  hours  every  night,  and  will  doubtless 
soon  be  giving  satisfaction  in  his  chosen  occupation  to 
some  business  house.  The  negroes  look  out  only  for  tips, 
are  interested  in  nothing  but  amusements,  and  never  get 
any  higher.  Bear  in  mind,  they  are  considerably  above 
the  average  negro  in  qualifications  and  station. 

The  other  instance  is  that  some  co-operating  Greek 
boys  have  recently  captured  a  very  considerable  pro 
portion  of  the  shoe-shining.  They  provide  more  con 
venient  and  comfortable  seats  and  give  a  better  shine 
than  the  negro  does,  in  a  much  shorter  time,  and  for  the 
same  price.  It  looks  now  as  if  they  are  bound  to  make 
full  conquest  of  the  business.  With  my  experience  it 
is  more  of  a  surprise  to  me  to  see  clothes  laundered, 


400  The  Brothers'  War 

tables  waited  on,  and  shoes  shined  by  the  whites,  than 
even  to  see  cotton  picked  by  them. 

But  to  go  on  with  Atlanta.  Occupations  requiring  the 
management  of  machinery  or  peculiar  skill  are  nearly 
always  filled  by  whites.  The  street  railroad  conductors 
and  motormen  are  all  white.  The  only  negroes  con 
nected  with  the  road  that  I,  as  a  passenger,  generally 
see  is  the  curve-greaser,  and  now  and  then  a  helper  on 
the  construction  car.  The  steam  railroads  will  employ 
a  negro  fireman  because  of  his  ability  to  stand  heat,  but 
they  do  not  trust  him  to  oil  and  wipe.  In  the  smaller 
buildings  negro  elevator-runners  some  time  ago  were 
frequent,  but  now  it  is  clear  that  the  whites  will  soon 
have  the  occupation  exclusively.  There  is,  I  believe, 
more  building,  in  this  year  of  1904,  in  Atlanta  than  ever 
before.  The  preparation  of  all  the  material  is  done  by 
white  labor  in  the  planing-mills  and  machine-shops,  while 
the  more  unskilled  work  of  putting  it  in  place  is  done 
by  the  negro  carpenter. 

The  lathers  and  plasterers  are  all  negroes,  there  are 
more  negro  brick  and  stone  masons  than  white,  and  the 
carpenters  are  nearly  all  negroes,  there  being  but  few 
young  white  ones.  The  painters  are  about  equally 
divided.  The  negro's  standard  of  living  is  so  much 
lower  than  that  of  the  white,  that  where  there  is  com 
petition  he  proves  victor  by  accepting  a  price  upon 
which  the  white  man  cannot  live.  But  the  latter  does 
not  throw  up  the  sponge.  At  the  point  where  race 
competition  begins  he  induces  the  negroes,  whenever 
he  can,  to  join  his  union,  and  soon  to  have  one  of  their 
own.  Just  now  (August,  1904)  there  are  not  enough 
of  brickmasons  to  supply  the  demand,  and  there  is  both 
a  white  and  black  union  of  that  trade.  But  so  far  there 
has  been  no  success  in  the  efforts  made  for  a  black  car 
penters'  union.  The  negroes  have  of  late  years  kept  such 


The  Race  Question  —  in  Detail      40 1 

firm  hold  of  the  trade,  that  it  seems  no  young  whites 
come  into  it,  there  being  but  few  white  carpenters  in 
Atlanta  under  forty  years  of  age.  The  negroes  under 
stand  that  their  grip  is  due  to  their  ability  to  work  for 
lower  pay  than  the  whites,  and  when  the  union  is  pro 
posed  they  say  to  themselves,  that  means  only  more 
places  for  white  carpenters  and  less  for  us.  But  the 
trend  to  form  unions  seems  to  strengthen.  There  is  a 
mixed  union  of  tailors,  separate  unions  of  blacksmiths' 
helpers,  moulders'  helpers,  painters,  and  also  of  brick- 
masons,  as  just  mentioned.  There  is  a  black  union  of 
plasterers  and  no  white  one.  It  is  to  be  remembered 
that  the  initiative  to  unionize  the  negro  workman  comes 
from  the  other  race,  the  purpose  being  to  balk  the  exer 
tions  of  employers  to  depress  wages  by  encouraging  the 
cheaper  worker.  Consider  the  dilemma  of  the  negro 
workman  invited  into  the  union  by  whites.  He  foresees 
that  if  he  accepts,  his  race  will  after  a  while  be  swamped 
in  the  trade  by  white  competition.  At  the  same  time 
he  foresees  that  if  he  does  not  accept,  he  cannot  increase 
his  income,  which  in  its  smallness  becomes  more  and 
more  inadequate  to  sustain  himself  and  family  under 
the  constant  demands  of  the  day  for  larger  and  larger 
expenditure.  The  immediate  needs  of  those  depend 
ent  upon  him  will  generally  decide  his  course.  I  can 
not  say  how  long  the  negro  carpenters  of  Atlanta  will 
refuse  the  proposal  to  federate  themselves  in  a  union  with 
the  whites ;  but  this  I  can  say,  that  all  attempts  of  the 
negroes  to  keep  the  whites  out  of  any  well-paid  vocation 
must  fail,  even  with  the  most  resolute  and  stubbornly 
maintained  effort.  As  I  view  it  on  the  spot  the  white 
forward  movement  palpably  strengthens  and  the  de 
fence  weakens.  Bear  in  mind  that  the  whites  receive 
constant  re-enforcement  from  all  other  white  American 
and  European  communities,  and  the  blacks  are  con- 

26 


402  The  Brothers*  War 

fined  to  their  own  resources  of  supply,  all  the  while 
declining. 

What  I  have  just  told  as  happening  in  Atlanta  intelli 
gent  and  observant  negroes  detect  to  be  but  a  part  of 
the  general  recession  before  white  competition.  The 
National  Negro  Business  League  had  its  last  meeting  at 
Indianapolis.  In  one  of  the  resolutions  adopted,  mainly 
because  of  the  influence  of  Dr.  Booker  T.  Washington, 
its  president,  occurs  this  allegation,  "  During  our  dis 
cussions  it  has  been  clearly  developed  that  the  race  has 
been  steadily  losing  many  avenues  of  valuable  employ 
ment."  The  resolution  ascribes  this  to  lack  of  proper 
training,  and  recommends  that  the  lack  be  supplied. 
A  negro  makes  this  acute  and  true  comment,  which  I 
would  have  attended  to  here,  and  considered  again 
when  further  on  I  discuss  what  the  industrial  schools 
can  do: 

"  That  the  colored  man  has  of  late  years  been  losing  many 
avenues  of  employment  is  quite  true,  but  the  conclusion  that 
this  is  due  to  a  lack  of  training  is  not  to  be  hastily  accepted. 
Nobody  believes  that  our  people  are  now  less  capable  of  work 
than  they  were  when  recognized  in  these  avenues  of  labor. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  they  are  far  better  equipped  now  than  they 
were  then,  or  Tuskegee  and  Hampton  and  the  other  industrial 
schools  that  are  crowded  from  year  to  year  are  making  a  signal 
failure.  In  those  days  men  were  picked  up  here  and  there  and 
started  in  as  apprentices  as  green  as  they  could  be.  Now 
thousands  of  them  are  prepared  before  they  go  out  to  work. 
The  two  chief  reasons  our  folks  are  not  employed  so  universally 
now  is,  first,  the  fact,  that  the  white  south  has  gone  to  work  with 
its  own  hands,  and  second,  the  negro  refuses  longer  to  work  for 
nothing.  The  continued  assertion  by  some  of  our  leaders  that 
a  man  who  can  labor  will  not  be  discriminated  against,  is  untrue. 
The  preference  is  given  to  the  white  man  in  almost  every  case,  and 
the  negro  is  allowed  to  do  the  work  he  refuses.  It  is  well  enough 
to  ask  our  people  to  secure  industrial  education,  but  it  is  wrong 


The  Race  Question --in  Detail      403 

to  place  all  our  ills  upon  a  lack  of  such  training  or  to  recom 
mend  industrial  education  as  a  panacea.  Though  it  was  quite 
inevitable  that  the  league  should  adopt  such  a  resolution  as  an 
endorsement  of  its  president's  policy."  l 

I  have  italicized  in  the  quotation  the  statements  spe 
cially  pertinent  here.  They  are  very  weighty  proofs  sup 
porting  my  proposition  of  fact,  to  wit,  that  there  is  now 
waging  between  the  whites  and  negroes  an  internecine 
war  for  every  opportunity  of  labor  above  the  very 
lowest  and  unskilled. 

I  ask  also  that  it  be  noted  that  the  writer  is  utterly 
unconscious  of  any  negroes  than  those  of  the  upper 
class.  Not  a  thing  that  he  says  can  be  applied  to 
the  ninety-five  per  cent. 

The  death  rate  of  the  negro  is  coming  close  to, 
while  that  of  the  white  keeps  far  below,  the  birth  rate. 
Rapid  native  increase  and  vigorous  immigration  for  the 
whites,  nothing  but  slow  and  decreasing  propagation 
for  the  negroes ;  and  larger  and  larger  hosts  of  the 
former  giving  their  champions  active  sympathy  and 
help  —  the  event  of  this  inter-race  struggle  over  the 
trades  and  occupations  may  be  delayed,  but  it  cannot 
be  doubtful. 

The  reader  must  not  forget  that  the  negroes  now  in 
mind  belong  all  to  what  I  have  called  the  upper  class. 
Their  number  is  so  small  and  its  promise  of  increase  so 
slight  that  I  should  hardly  have  done  more  than  allude 
to  them,  if  the  subject  did  not  emphasize  so  impressively 
as  it  does  the  inevitable  expulsion  of  negro  by  white 
labor.  Let  me  explain  this  fully.  Professor  Wilcox, 
summarizing  the  pertinent  information  of  the  twelfth 
census  as  to  ten  leading  occupations  competed  for  by 
the  two  races  in  the  south,  states  that  in  the  year  1900 
the  per  cent  of  negroes  was  larger  in  seven  and  smaller 
1  The  Voice  of  the  Negro,  October,  1904,  p.  435. 


404  The  Brothers'  War 

in  nine  of  them  than  ten  years  before.1  That  alone 
shows  white  gain.  But  I  want  you  to  add  to  Professor 
Wilcox's  statement  something  of  which  the  census  gives 
no  hint,  that  is,  the  bound  forward  of  the  negroes  on 
one  side,  and  the  inaction  of  the  whites  on  the  other, 
during  many  years  beginning  with  emancipation  in 
1865.  When  that  has  been  done,  the  encroachment 
of  white  labor  upon  black  effected  in  the  comparatively 
short  time  since  its  beginning  appears  almost  prodigious. 
It  is  somewhat  like  the  race-horse,  who,  falling  far  behind 
in  the  first  stages  of  a  long  heat,  at  last  wakes  up  and 
gains  so  fast  that  nobody  will  bet  against  him.  It  means 
that  the  whites  are  now  as  ruthlessly  taking  all  oppor 
tunities  of  labor  away  from  the  blacks,  as  their  fathers 
took  his  lands  away  from  the  American  Indian. 

We  can  now  say  our  last  word  in  contrasting  the  two 
classes.  Many  fail  to  see  clearly  the  difference  between 
them.  Thus  Ernest  Hamlin  Abbott2  and  Edgar  Gardner 
Murphy,3  in  their  pleasant  discussions,  only  here  and 
there,  and  as  if  casually,  say  something  which  momen 
tarily  implies  existence  of  the  lower  class,  and  then  re 
lapse  into  claiming  for  all  of  the  southern  negroes,  if  not 
the  actual  condition  of  the  upper  class,  at  least  hopeful 
possibility  of  soon  achieving  it.  These  two  kind-hearted 
men  represent  a  large  number  who  firmly  believe  that 
education  and  the  church  are  now  rapidly  elevating  the 
negro  masses,  when  the  fact  is  far  otherwise.  Many 
from  the  north  see  nothing  but  the  upper  class.  In 
what  he  writes  of  the  negroes  whom  he  knew  in  public 
life,  the  late  Senator  Hoar  was  utterly  unconscious  of 
the  average  negro  whom  all  of  us  in  the  south  know.4 

1  Department  of  Commerce  and  Labor  Bureau  of  the  Census,  Bulletin 
8,  Negroes  in  the  United  States,  p.  13. 

2  I  have  in  mind  his  late  articles  in  the  Outlook. 
8  See  his  "  Problems  of  the  Present  South." 

4  Autobiography  of  Seventy  Years,  vol.  ii.  60-62. 


The  Race  Question  —  in  Detail      405 

Dr.  Lyman  Abbott,  a  most  benign  example  of  broad 
and  almost  perfect  tolerance  to  both  sections,  taking  all 
southern  hearts  by  his  loving  sympathy  with  and  full 
justice  to  the  better  sentiment  of  our  section  in  every 
matter  of  importance  except  the  appointment  of  negroes 
to  office,  he  never  seems  to  have  in  mind  any  negroes  but 
the  prominent  ones  who  are  giving  their  fellows  indus 
trial  or  the  higher  education,  and  those  who  have  been 
blessed  with  either.  Do  but  consider  how  pathetically 
he  lately  lamented  the  case  of  the  "  white  negro  "  lady 
shut  out  from  the  circle  of  cultivation  and  kept  confined 
in  one  of  ignorance  and  lowness.  This  last  circle  —  its 
magnitude,  its  bad  and  desperate  state  —  he  really  knows 
nothing  about.  He  can  no  more  study  its  deplorable 
and  heartrending  conditions  than  the  mother  can  endure 
to  have  the  expectoration  of  her  child  threatened  with 
tuberculosis  examined  under  the  microscope.  Chicago 
has  been  for  some  while  "  farthest  to  the  front "  in  the 
struggle  against  corporation  rule.  Her  battles  for  direct 
nomination,  direct  legislation,  and  municipal  ownership 
have  been  chronicled  more  accurately  and  intelligently 
in  the  Public  than  I  can  find  elsewhere.  Therefore  I 
read  it  with  diligence ;  and  I  relish  more  and  more  Mr. 
Post's  sound  and  able  anti-machine  and  anti-plutocratic 
advocacy.  But  in  everything  that  the  paper  says  or 
quotes  on  the  race  question  I  am  pained  to  note  that 
its  shortcoming  is  greater  than  its  very  high  merit  in 
preaching  democratic  democracy.  Mr.  Ernest  Hamlin 
Abbott  does  now  and  then  call  the  negroes  a  child 
race,  but  Mr.  Post  repudiates,  all  backwardness  and  in 
feriority  of  race.  He  seems  to  maintain  the  equality  of 
the  average  negro  to  the  average  white  in  all  essentials 
of  good  citizenship  with  the  zeal  of  Wendell  Phillips, 
when  the  providence  of  the  American  union  frenzied 
and  deputed  him  to  infuriate  its  defenders  against  the 


406  The  Brothers'  War 

disunion  slave-owners.  Mr.  Post,  as  appears  to  me,  be 
lieves  with  all  his  heart  in  the  doctrine  of  Mrs.  Stowe 
and  Whittier,  to  mention  no  others,  as  to  the  negro. 
Every  pertinent  utterance  in  his  paper  indicates  that  he 
has  no  thought  whatever  of  the  lower  class.  A  most 
striking  illustration  of  this  is  how  he  treats  the  story  of 
the  negro  Richard  R.  Wright.1  When  the  latter  was 
ten  years  old  he  won  great  fame  by  the  answer  he  made 
General  Howard,  who  had  inquired  of  the  negro  children 
at  the  Storrs  School  in  Atlanta,  just  after  the  close  of  the 
war,  "  Tell  me  what  message  I  shall  take  back  from  you 
to  the  people  of  the  north?"  His  face  ablaze  with  en 
thusiasm,  the  boy  Richard  said,  "  Tell  'em  we  're  risinY' 
Whittier  went  as  far  astray  over  this  as  we  saw  that 
he  did  in  his  "  Laus  Deo."  In  his  poem  celebrating  he 
sang— 

"  O  black  boy  of  Atlanta ! 
But  half  was  spoken  : 
The  slave's  chain  and  the  Master's 
Alike  are  broken. 
The  one  curse  of  the  races 
Held  both  in  tether  : 
They  are  rising  —  all  are  rising, 
The  black  and  white  together." 

I  never  read  the  last  two  lines  without  in  mind  ad 
monishing  the  author,  "  Praise  in  departing." 

When  Mr.  Post  published  the  story,  he  ought  to  have 
mentioned  that  while  the  boy  who  sent  forth  the  winged 
words  did  rise  and  has  become  president  of  the  Georgia 
Industrial  College,  yet  that  such  negroes  are  far  more 
rare  than  millionaires,  and  the  main  host  of  their  people 
in  the  south  were  sinking  at  the  time,  and  have  been 
sinking  ever  since.  It  is  not  true  that  "  all  are  rising." 

i  By  Anne  Scribner,  and  copied  in  the  Public  of  September  17,  1904, 
from  the  Chicago  Evening  Post. 


The  Race  Question  —  in  Detail      407 

The  whites  have  recently  begun  to  rise ;  five  per  cent 
only  of  the  negroes,  most  of  whom  are  largely  white, 
are  rising,  while  the  rest  of  them  are  doomed,  if  the 
nation  does  not  interpose.  And  the  colored  dentist  of 
Chicago,  slighted  by  some  of  the  white  dentists  —  Mr. 
Post  sees  in  him,  just  as  he  sees  in  Richard  R.  Wright, 
a  representative  of  the  negro  millions. 

These  conscientious  and  amiable  gentlemen  are  wasting 
much  effort  uselessly.  There  is  no  very  urgent  problem 
as  to  the  upper  class  of  negroes.  It  has  two  strings  to 
its  bow.  If  the  lower  class  should  perish,  a  large  part 
of  it  —  perhaps  the  greater  part  —  will  be  assimilated. 
Every  day  I  detect  a  larger  movement  toward  the  north 
among  our  better-to-do  negroes.  I  hear  of  girls  that 
get  places  as  chambermaids  and  cooks,  of  boys  that  find 
places  as  ostlers  or  other  domestic  service ;  and  I  have 
heard  of  a  few  families  who  have  gone  in  a  body,  also 
of  some  men  who  have  left  wife  and  children  here. 
They  believe  the  north  will  allow  their  votes  to  be 
counted,  will  not  proscribe  them  in  society  as  the  south 
does,  and  they  will  probably  get  for  themselves  or  their 
descendants  intermarriage  with  whites.  The  determina 
tion  of  these  southern  negroes  towards  the  north  will 
probably  gain  in  volume  and  energy.  It  is  plain  that 
those  who  go  do  much  increase  their  chances  of  final 
absorption  into  the  body  of  whites.  This  assimilation  is 
one  of  the  two  strings.  And  if  the  American  negroes 
shall  one  day  be  conceded  their  own  State,  as  I  hope 
and  pray  for,  their  leaders  must  come  from  the  upper 
class.  That  is  the  other  of  the  two  strings. 

This  upper  class  of  southern  negroes  has  demonstrated 
full  ability  to  take  care  of  itself.  It  has  its  schools  and 
colleges,  newspapers,  magazines,  and  augmenting  litera 
ture,  its  widening  circle  of  students  and  readers,  and  its 
good  shepherds  and  able  leaders.  It  rapidly  wins  favor 


40  8  The  Brothers'  War 

in  the  south.  A  few  of  our  residents  see  no  other 
negroes  but  those  in  this  upper  class,  a  most  striking 
instance  of  which  is  Joel  Chandler  Harris's  sweeping 
assertion  "  that  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
negroes  in  all  parts  of  the  south,  especially  in  the  agricul 
tural  regions,  are  leading  sober  and  industrious  lives  "^ 
When  one  who  fully  understands  the  situation  studies  the 
assertion  just  quoted  he  sees  from  the  context  that  the 
writer  was  led  to  make  it  because  he  had  at  the  time 
in  his  eyes  only  a  few  of  the  better  negroes  in  the  At 
lanta  upper  class.  This  is  powerful  testimony  to  their 
prosperity  and  self-maintaining  faculty.  Similarly  the 
Chicago  Public  rates  the  four  hundred  inhabitants  of 
Boley  in  the  Creek  nation  as  common  or  average  negroes. 
According  to  a  news  dispatch  mentioned  in  that  paper 
the  town  is  only  a  year  old,  has  "  two  churches,  a  school- 
house,  several  large  stores,  and  a  $5,000  cotton  gin, 
owned  and  controlled  exclusively  by  negroes."  It  is 
without  a  system  of  law  and  without  municipal  govern 
ment,  and  "  yet  no  serious  crime  or  offence  of  any  kind 
has  been  committed  in  the  place."  These  four  hundred 
negroes  do  not  permit  any  white  man  to  settle  in  the 
town.  Commenting  in  conclusion  upon  the  news,  the 
Public  says,  "  If  that  dispatch  is  not  a  canard,  Anglo- 
Saxon  civilization  has  something  to  learn  of  one  race 
which  it  has  outraged  and  abused  and  despised."2 

Any  such  place  as  Boley,  if  a  reality,  is  peopled  only 
by  negroes  of  the  upper  class,  and,  further,  only  by 
those  who  have  been  sifted  out  from  the  rest  of  that 
class  by  a  peculiarly  drastic  selection.  Had  they  not 
each  had  remarkable  good  fortune,  extraordinary  ca 
pacity,  and  exceptional  experience  and  training,  Boley 

1  The  passage  with  the  context  quoted  by  Dr.  Booker  Washington, 
"  Working  with  the  Hands,"  238. 

2  Issue  of  October  15,  1904. 


The  Race  Question  --in  Detail      409 

would  never  have  been  heard  of.  I  ask  that  the  fair- 
minded  make  two  comparisons.  I.  Suppose  four  hun 
dred  negroes  —  not  naturally  selected,  but  taken  in  a 
body,  just  as  each  one  comes,  from  the  masses  of  the 
lower  class  described  herein  —  given  opportunity  to 
found  a  town  of  their  own  amid  what  we  may  call  Boley 
conditions,  what  would  be  the  result?  You  may  be  sure 
that  what  occurred  in  Hayti  when  the  reins  of  govern 
ment  were  suddenly  given  to  the  negroes  at  large  would 
in  some  sort  be  repeated.  2.  Compare  Boley  in  all  its 
bloom  and  happy  condition  as  described  in  the  Public 
with  certain  communities  of  select  whites,  which  have 
flourished  now  and  then  for  years,  without  formal  gov 
ernment;  say  the  Amana  community.  If  this  be  rightly 
done,  social  organism  of  select  whites  will  at  once  ap 
pear  to  be  incomparably  superior  to  that  of  select 
negroes. 

I  have  tried  my  hardest  to  make  my  readers  see  as 
clearly  as  one  bred  in  the  south  ought  to  see  what  a 
world-wide  difference  there  is  between  the  small  upper 
class  and  the  numerous  lower  class  of  negroes.  If  I 
have  succeeded  they  will  agree  with  me  that  it  is  the 
better  policy  to  leave  the  upper  class,  for  the  present, 
just  where  it  is.  If  this  advice  be  followed,  that  class 
will  flourish,  and  some  day  either  be  assimilated,  or  be 
giving  benign  salvation  to  the  lower  class  in  the  negro 
State.  Especially  should  this  upper  class  eschew  poli 
tics.  Booker  Washington  in  preaching  this  is  the  only 
real  American  prophet  of  the  day.  With  all  of  his  zeal 
for  his  race,  he  is  far  better  appreciated  in  the  south  than 
in  the  north,  and  perhaps  just  as  popular.  What  a 
lamentable  arrest  of  its  benign  development  it  would  be 
to  this  upper  class  to  turn  it  away  from  industrial  better 
ment  of  its  condition  to  lead  the  mass  of  the  negroes  at 
the  polls  in  a  struggle  for  rule  and  office  !  That  would 


410  The  Brothers'  War 

be  something  like  renewing  the  conditions  that  devel 
oped  the  Ku-Klux  Klan. 

It  is  the  great  body  of  the  southern  negroes  —  those 
in  the  lower  class,  who  have  no  string  at  all,  nor  even  a 
bow  —  that  demands  the  profoundest  attention.  I  wish 
I  could  make  every  white  man,  woman,  and  child  of 
America  see  them  just  as  they  are.  As  I  compare  them 
with  what  they  were  in  1865  I  note  they  have  advanced 
somewhat  in  mental  arithmetic,  because  of  practice  in 
computing  small  sums  of  money  involved  in  their  wages 
and  purchases;  that  they  have  learned  somewhat  of 
self-providence,  and  very  much  endurance  of  want 
(which  last  is  really  a  reversion  to  a  trait  of  their  West 
African  ancestors) ;  and  that  the  per  cent  of  illiteracy 
among  them  has  been  greatly  lessened.  On  the  other 
hand,  each  generation  becomes  more  disinclined  to  work, 
and  its  vagrants  multiply;  each  generation  more  prone 
to  live  by  crime,  more  unchaste,  and  more  quick  to 
desert  their  conjugal  partners  and  children.  Especially 
are  they  far  more  unhealthy  and  prone  to  insanity,  and 
their  death  rate  rapidly  rising.  They  have  no  resource 
but  unskilled  labor  of  the  lowest  and  cheapest  grade ; 
white  competition  in  agriculture  and  domestic  service, 
machinery  in  other  fields,  such  as  the  scrape  which  has 
superseded  the  dump-cart,  the  improved  steam-shovel 
and  method  of  handling  construction  trains,  and  the 
steam  laundry,  steadily  curtailing  that  resource ;  a  sloth 
ful,  improvident,  and  wasteful  disposition  curtailing  it 
still  further.  The  resurrecting  hand  of  the  trades  union 
cannot  reach  down  to  them.  Steadily  they  are  more 
useless  to  every  upbuilder  of  the  coming  south  except 
the  wage-depresser.  More  and  more  they  get  in  the 
way  of  real  progress  in  every  direction.  And  as  their 
supplies  of  necessaries  diminish  they  get  in  one  another's 
way.  Nearly  all  of  the  whites  who  were  bound  to  them 


The  Race  Question  —  in  Detail      411 

in  the  domestic  love  of  the  old  south  times  are  dead. 
Most  naturally  and  unavoidably  as  the  new  generation 
discerns  the  growing  incompatibility  of  their  stay  in  the 
section  with  its  true  welfare,  unfriendliness  comes  and 
grows.  Listless,  lethargic,  careless,  without  initiative, 
without  opportunity  and  coercion  to  make  use  of  it, 
these  multitudes  of  inveterate  have-nothings  are  in  a 
bottomless  gulf  of  want,  immorality,  crime,  and  disease. 
A  true  philanthropist  has  familiarized  the  world  with 
the  "  submerged  tenth."  Mr.  Ernest  Hamlin  Abbott, 
Mr.  Murphy,  Mr.  Joel  Chandler  Harris,  Dr.  Abbott,  Mr. 
Post,  stand  beside  me  on  the  strand,  and  fix  your  eyes, 
minds,  and  hearts  upon  the  slowly  drowning  ninety-five 
per  cent  of  the  southern  negroes.  Lay  aside  the  excess 
of  your  devotion  to  the  upper  class.  It  does  not  need 
it.  The  Chicago  dentist,  as  the  Public  itself  reports, 
was  really  more  than  indemnified  for  the  insult  given 
him  because  of  his  color  by  the  sympathetic  resentment 
of  white  members  of  his  profession.  Why  will  you  keep 
agitating  the  nation  in  behalf  of  a  few  thousands,  who 
are  well  able  to  maintain  themselves,  and  neglect  mil 
lions  who  require,  as  Mr.  Tillinghast  says,  some  heroic 
remedy  for  their  salvation? 

I  shall  now  tell  you  the  utter  inadequacy  of  Hampton, 
Tuskegee,  and  the  like,  after  which  I  shall  consider  what, 
in  my  judgment,  is  the  only  remedy. 

The  annual  output,  as  we  may  call  it,  of  all  the  negro 
educational  institutions  in  the  south  is  a  mere  drop  in 
the  bucket  when  compared  with  the  enormous  need. 
The  latest  reliable  figures  accessible  to  me  are  those  of 
Booker  Washington  for  1897.  They  are  as  follows: 
13,581  receiving  industrial  training,  2,108  collegiate 
education,  2,410  classical  instruction,  and  1,311  "taking 
the  professional  course,"  J  —  the  last  three  aggregating 
1  Encyclopedia  Americana,  Article  "  Negro  Education." 


412    «•'?          The  Brothers'  War 

5,829.  Suppose  the  entire  17,999  were  following  indus 
trial  courses,  and  that  every  one  graduated  with  credit; 
and  suppose  there  be  added  the  work  of  the  land,  com 
panies  providing  homes  and  every  other  enterprise  help 
ing  the  negro  in  any  way  —  suppose  this  output  to  be 
trebled  annually  from  this  time  on  (which  is  far  above 
possibility  for  many  years  yet,  to  say  nothing  of  prob 
ability),  what  would  be  its  accomplishment?  Why,  no 
more  than  a  slight  shower  in  a  few  townships  during 
the  drought  a  few  years  ago  would  have  done  in  pre 
venting  injury  to  the  Kansas  corn  crop.  When  you  at 
tend,  you  understand  that  the  great  advantages  of  these 
excellent  institutions  are  only  fora  few  lucky  negroes, — 
picked  ones  of  the  upper  class,  —  and  not  for  the  millions 
whose  crying  need  is  for  opportunity  to  earn  honest  daily 
bread  and  a  really  benevolent  coercion  to  use  the  oppor 
tunity.  The  problem,  what  to  do  for  this  mass,  cannot  be 
solved  by  philippics  against  such  things  as  de  facto  or 
constitutional  disfranchisement  of  the  blacks,  lynching 
them,  showing  them  disrespect  in  military  parades,  giving 
them  Jim  Crow  cars,  and  not  dividing  the  educational 
fund  more  liberally  with  them ;  nor  would  it  contribute 
one  jot  or  tittle  towards  its  solution  if  every  lady  in 
America  cordially  received  in  her  drawing-room  the  few 
negroes  who  have  most  deservedly  won  the  respect  of 
the  nation.  To  solve  this  problem,  something  must  be 
found  which  will  train  and  elevate  the  average  negro, 
while  the  exceptional  one  is  at  the  industrial  school  or 
college,  or  studying  for  a  profession ;  something  which 
will  check  the  prevalent  reversion  away  from  monogamic 
family  life,  and  stimulate  that  life  to  develop  steadily; 
something  also  which  will  impart  to  this  entire  mass  per 
manent  and  strengthening  impulse  to  better  its  condition. 
The  only  thing  that  can  do  this  is  to  separate  the  negro 
as  far  as  may  be  from  the  whites,  give  him  his  own  State 


The  Race  Question  —  in  Detail      413 

in  our  union,  and  constrain  him  there  with  vigilant  kind 
ness  to  subsist  and  govern  himself  in  such  ways  as  suit 
him.  I  have  long  thought  that  our  negroes  had  far 
stronger  claim  upon  the  nation  for  land  than  the  un- 
civilizable  redskins  on  whom  we  have  lavished  so  much 
expense  in  vain. 

Righteousness  demands  that  we  give  the  former  full 
opportunity  to  develop  normally  in  self-government. 
Put  him  in  a  State  of  his  own  on  our  continent ;  provide 
irrepealably  in  the  organic  law  that  all  land  and  public 
service  franchises  be  common  property;  give  no  polit 
ical  rights  therein  to  those  of  any  other  race  than  the 
African ;  compel  nobody  to  settle  in  this  State,  but  let 
every  black  reside  in  whatever  part  of  the  nation  that 
pleases  him ;  let  this  community  while  in  a  Territorial 
condition,  and  also  for  a  reasonable  time  after  it  has 
been  admitted  as  a  State,  be  faithfully  superintended  by 
the  nation  in  order  that  republican  government  be  there 
preserved,  —  do  these  things,  and  there  need  be  no  fear 
that  the  examples  of  Hayti  and  San  Domingo,  which 
were  not  so  superintended,  will  be  repeated.  Nearly  all 
of  the  American  Indians,  because  of  rigid  adherence  to 
their  old  customs  and  ways,  were  crushed  by  Caucasian 
rule.  But  the  negro,  wherever  he  comes  in  contact  with 
a  superior,  shows  a  pliancy,  a  self-adaptability  to  new 
circumstances,  to  which  no  parallel  has  ever  been  sug 
gested,  so  far  as  I  know.  If  civilized  self-government 
will  but  kindly  keep  him  a  while  at  its  labor  school 
where  he  is  to  learn  by  doing,  I  am  profoundly  con 
vinced  that  he  will  develop  into  the  very  best  of  citizens. 
And  I  am  also  just  as  profoundly  convinced  that  if 
something  like  what  I  recommend  is  not  done  at  a  com 
paratively  early  day,  after  some  while,  as  there  are  now 
in  America  a  few  prosperous  Indians  and  in  New  Zealand 
a  few  prosperous  Maoris,  we  will  have  here  and  there  a 


4i 4  The  Brothers'  War 

few  prosperous  negroes ;  but  the  rest  of  them  will  either 
be  confirmed  degenerates,  or  have  gone  no  one  will 
know  whither.  And  Booker  Washington,  the  moral 
exemplar  of  the  day,  rivalling  Horace's 

"  I  us  turn  et  tenacem  propositi  virum," 

as  he  resists  the  pernicious  counsels  of  the  overwhelm 
ing  majority  of  negroes  and  keeps  to  the  wise  and  right 
course  which  they  passionately  condemn;  who  is  far 
more  able  and  who  has  accomplished  infinitely  more 
of  good  than  Toussaint  or  Douglass  —  he  will  be  a  great 
hero  statesman  of  a  great  cause  lost.  The  historian  of 
the  future  that  has  something  like  Shakspeare's  genius 
for  contrast  will  make  his  glory  and  that  of  Calhoun 
magnify  each  other  by  comparison. 

The  foregoing  as  to  a  negro  State,  which  is  the  result 
of  years  of  observation  and  reflection,  had  all  been  writ 
ten  for  some  time  when  I  fell  in  with  the  address  of 
Bishop  Holsey,  mentioned  above.  It  is  the  proposition 
of  the  address  that  a  part  of  the  United  States  should 
be  assigned  to  the  negroes.  I  add  an  abstract  from  the 
synopsis  of  his  views  given  in  the  address : 

1.  Negroes  and  whites  "are  so  distinct  and  dissimilar 
in  racial  traits,  instincts,  and  character,  it  is  impossible 
for  them  to  live  together  on  equal  terms  of  social  and 
political  relation,  or  on  terms  of  equal  citizenship." 

2.  The  general  government  only  has  power  to  settle 
the  problem,  and  it  ought  to  settle  it. 

3.  Separation  of  the  negroes  and  whites  "  is  the  most 
practicable,  logical,  and  equitable  solution  of  the  prob 
lem." 

4.  "  Segregation   and   separation  should  be  gradual 
.  .  .  and  non-compulsory,  so  as  not  to  injure  .  .  .  labor, 
capital,  and  commerce  .  .  .  where  the  negro  is  an  im 
portant  factor  of  production  and  consumption." 


The  Race  Question  —  in  Detail      415 

5.  The  southern  negroes  should  petition  the  presi 
dent  and  congress  "  for  suitable  territory  ...  as  ... 
equal  citizens  .  .  .  and  not  go  out  of  their  country  to 
be  exposed  to  doubtful  experiment  and  foreign  compli 
cations.     Afro-Americans  should  remain  in  their  own 
country,  in  the  zone  of  greatness,  and  in  the  latitude  of 
progress." 

6.  The  government  should,  in  effecting  segregation, 
maintain  "  civil  order,  peace,  progress,  and  prosperity." 

7.  The  place  for  the  negroes  may  be  in  the  western 
public  domain,  such  as  a  part  of  the  Indian  Territory, 
New  Mexico,  or  elsewhere  in  the  west. 

8.  No  white  person  unless  married  to  a  negro,  or  a 
resident  federal  official,  to  be  allowed  citizenship  in  the 
negro  State  or  Territory,  but  all  citizens  of  the  United 
States  to  be  protected  therein  as  in  the  other  States.1 

9.  Only  those  of  reputable  character  and  some  de 
gree  of  education,  and  perhaps  those  possessed  of  a 
year's  support,  to  become  citizens.     Criminals  and  un 
desirable  persons  to  be  kept  out. 

It  was  gratification  extreme  to  me  to  find  a  prominent 
negro  so  much  in  accord  with  my  long-cherished  project. 
I  hope  there  is  a  determination  of  the  mass  of  southern 
negroes  thitherward,  as  seems  to  be  indicated  by  the 
activity  both  of  Bishop  Holsey  and  also  by  that  of 
Bishop  Turner.  With  nearly  all  of  the  negro  writers 
and  speakers  now  in  the  public  eye  upper-class  sympa 
thies  are  dominant.  But  Holsey,  demanding  a  State  in 
the  union,  and  Turner,  putting  his  whole  soul  into 
immigration  to  Liberia,  are  actuated  by  lower-class 

1  But  the  most  drastic  provisions  to  keep  the  greedy  whites  from  prey, 
ing  upon  the  negroes  as  they  did  upon  the  Indians  must  be  adopted,  such 
as  permitting  the  negro  State  to  tax  without  limit  whites  owning  prop 
erty  or  doing  business  therein.  This  will  prevent  the  result  anticipated 
by  Booker  Washington. 


4i 6  The  Brothers'  War 

sympathies.  The  others  just  mentioned  really  advocate 
assimilation,  —  and  at  bottom,  only  the  assimilation  of 
the  upper  class,  —  but  these  two  are  of  far  different  and 
higher  ambition.  They  are  patriotic,  and  as  true  to 
their  race  as  that  famous  heathen  who  rejected  Christi 
anity  when  told  that  it  consigned  his  forefathers  to 
perdition.  He  declared  he  would  go  to  hell  with  his 
people  and  not  to  heaven  without  them.  The  others 
are  representative  of  only  some  five  per  cent,  these  two 
represent  the  ninety-five  per  cent  —  the  real  negroes. 
I  never  took  to  Bishop  Turners  proposal,  for  all  of  the 
ability  with  which  he  advocates  it,  because  I  want  the 
negroes  where  our  nation  can  foster  and  protect  their 
State,  it  matters  not  what  may  be  the  resulting  pains 
and  expense.  I  highly  approve  the  earnestness  of 
Bishop  Holsey  in  objecting  to  expatriation  by  the 
Afro-Americans. 

Let  our  negroes  have  their  own  State.  That  will  be 
the  fit  culmination  which  was  foreshadowed  in  their 
deserting  the  galleries  assigned  them  in  our  churches 
and  flocking  to  their  own  churches,  immediately  upon 
emancipation,  and  their  effecting  soon  afterwards  the 
removal  of  their  cabins  from  the  old  site.  Their  masses 
have  ever  since  been  inclining  towards  a  community  of 
their  own  by  an  internal  impulsion  in  harmony  with  the 
external  white  expulsion.  The  impulsion  and  the  ex 
pulsion  are  each,  as  it  seems  to  me,  manifestations 
of  the  same  all-powerful  cosmic  force. 

Further,  I  would  say  a  negro  State  makes  a  precedent 
for  the  world  federation.  Each  race  that  ought  not  to 
intermarry  with  others  can  flourish  under  its  separate 
autonomy.  Then  loving  brotherhood  between  white, 
yellow,  red,  and  black  people  will  bless  all  the  earth. 
Whether  the  proneness  of  opposites  to  fancy  each  other, 
progressively  going  from  the  smaller  to  the  greater  dif- 


The  Race  Question  —  in  Detail      417 

ferences,  will  ultimately  compound  a  universal  color,  no 
man  can  now  tell. 

Of  course  some  reader  has  exclaimed,  "  Your  pro 
posal  is  absurdly  chimerical."  Is  it  indeed  chimerical 
to  demand  of  the  great  republic  that  it  do  its  very 
highest  duty?  Suppose  an  ignorant,  neglected  child 
taken  home  by  a  rich  man,  taught  to  work,  the  world 
of  industry,  with  all  of  its  prizes,  kept  in  his  sight,  until 
he  begins  to  cherish  the  hope  that  some  day  he  can 
have  a  happy  fireside  of  his  own ;  suppose  further  that 
just  as  he  reaches  the  age  of  discretion  the  adopting 
father  sets  him  where  he  may  see  the  fair  world  plainer 
and  long  for  it  more  than  ever,  but  so  completely  strips 
him  of  all  means  and  opportunity  that  there  is  nothing 
for  the  outcast  but  ignoble  life  and  uncared-for  death. 
How  you  would  pity  the  outcast !  how  you  would  curse 
the  false  father !  I  cannot  believe  that  the  nation  will 
prove  such  an  unnatural  parent  to  these  its  helpless  and 
lovable  children.  It  may  be  that  some  thousands  of 
them,  nay,  some  millions,  may  be  left  to  perish  in 
their  dire  constraint.  But  when  the  people  fully  under 
stand,  their  consciences  will  awaken,  and  they  will  give 
the  American  negro  a  bright  house-warming. 

Suppose  we  do  not  give  him  his  State,  or  suppose  it 
will  be  long  years  before  we  give  it  to  him,  what  do  you 
say  we  are  to  do  for  him? 

We  must  help  Booker  Washington  and  his  co-laborers 
to  the  utmost.  Grant  that  they  can  sttatch  only  a  few 
brands  from  the  burning.  Is  it  not  most  praiseworthy 
to  save  even  one?  Further,  I  can  never  abandon  the 
hope  that  the  nation  will  yet  allot  the  negroes  their 
State,  even  if  to  do  it  land  must  be  condemned  on  a  large 
scale.  When  that  fair  day  does  dawn  on  America,  out 
of  the  scholars  of  these  worthy  teachers  will  come  many 
a  good  shepherd  for  the  blacks  in  their  new  land.  This 

27 


4i 8  The  Brothers*  War 

may  now  be  but  a  glimmering  of  hope.  All  the  good 
must  join  in  effort  to  enlarge  and  brighten  it. 

We  should  not  begrudge  the  higher  education  to  the 
few  in  the  upper  class  who  can  get  it.  The  negroes  need 
teachers,  preachers,  writers,  and  others  of  the  learned 
occupations. 

We  should  impartially  equalize  the  negro  population 
to  the  white  in  common  school  privileges.  Both  ought 
to  have  rational  industrial  training.  The  right  primary 
education  is  just  beginning  to  show  itself.  It  will  more 
and  more  recognize  what  a  prominent  factor  the  hand 
has  been  in  evolution.  Think  of  the  superiority  of 
animals  with,  to  those  without,  hands.  What  a  high 
brain  the  elephant  has  made  for  himself  by  exercising 
his  single  hand ;  the  polar  bear  kills  the  seal  by  throw 
ing  a  block  of  ice ;  the  'coon  goes  through  his  master's 
pockets  for  sweetmeats ;  the  greater  intelligence  of  the 
house-cat  as  compared  with  the  average  dog  is  due  to 
long  use  of  the  forepaws  as  rudimentary  hands.  Think 
of  how  we  note  humanity  dawning  in  the  monkey  ever 
busy  with  his  hands.  Think  of  the  importance  of  his 
hands  to  beginning  man.  With  them  he  could  gather 
fruits,  rub  fire-sticks  together,  make  war-clubs,  spears, 
fish-hooks,  bow  and  arrows,  bar  up  his  cave  door  against 
beasts  of  prey,  elevate  his  roosting  place  in  a  tree  too 
high  for  night  prowlers,  and  do  all  other  vital  things  up 
the  whole  ascent  to  civilization.  The  steady  enlarge 
ment  of  man's  brain  has  been  mainly  because  of  his 
progressive  use  of  his  hands ;  for  whenever  a  new  thing 
was  to  be  done  his  brain  had  first  to  acquire  faculty  of 
telling  hands  how  to  do  it.  To  train  the  hands  is  the 
true  way  to  develop  brain  power.  The  negroes  in 
American  slavery  had  risen  far  above  the  level  of  West 
African  hand  ability,  and  at  emancipation  they  were 
prepared  to  go  higher  by  leaps  and  bounds.  Had  they 


The  Race  Question  —  in  Detail      419 

from  that  time  steadily  on  been  drafted  off  into  their 
State,  gradually,  as  Bishop  Holsey  suggests,  and  a  tithe 
of  the  millions  which  have  since  been  lavished  in  giving 
them  premature  literacy  and  smattering  of  learning 
been  applied  in  teaching  their  children  handicraft  faculty 
and  the  best  methods  of  labor,  the  promise  for  them 
now  would  be  satisfactory  to  their  dearest  friends. 
Somebody  wisely  advises,  Never  do  the  second  thing 
first.  Those  who  took  charge  of  the  negro  when  he 
was  freed  tried  to  make  him  do  the  hundredth  or 
thousandth  thing  first.  Instead  of  patiently  schooling 
him  in  handicraft  and  self-support  until  he  was  really 
ready  to  take  part  in  his  own  self-government,  they 
made  the  ignorant  and  inexperienced  slave  of  yesterday 
a  complete  citizen,  and  plunged  him  up  to  his  neck  into 
politics  and  letters.  What  a  baleful  hysteron  proteron 
was  this.  The  looming  greatness  of  Booker  Washing 
ton  is  that  he  teaches  by  his  actions  that  the  seeming 
advance  was  in  fact  prodigious  retrogression,  and  he 
strives  with  all  his  might  to  draw  the  negro  backwards 
to  his  right  beginning.  Let  us  further  his  good  work 
by  incorporating  the  utmost  practicable  of  his  industrial 
training  in  our  common  school  system  for  both  whites 
and  blacks.  America  has  learned  important  military 
lessons  from  the  redskin ;  and,  as  I  am  almost  sure,  she 
acted  on  his  suggestion  when  she  confederated  the 
separate  colonies.  Let  her  now  show  similar  good 
sense  in  permitting  a  negro  to  teach  her  the  true  system 
of  education  for  the  new  times.1 

1  The  best  thing  upon  the  joint  education  of  hand  and  brain  known  to 
me  is  "  Pagan  vs.  Christian  Civilization,"  by  S.  H.  Comings  (Charles  H. 
Kerr  &  Co.,  Chicago).  The  title  does  not  indicate,  as  it  ought  to  do,  the  spe 
cial  purpose  of  the  book  to  show  that  to  give  the  scholar  expertness  with 
his  hands  at  the  first  and  thus  develop  his  self-supporting  ability  is  far 
better  than  to  cram  his  memory.  What  the  author  says  in  maintenance  of 
his  proposition,  that  our  industrial  schools  should  be  operated  upon  a  plan 


420  The  Brothers'  War 

Now  as  to  lynching.  It  is  entirely  wrong  to  conceive 
of  a  popular  outbreak  against  one  who  has  outraged  a 
sacred  woman  as  lawless.  It  is  the  furthest  possible  from 
that,  being  prompted  by  the  most  righteous  indignation. 
The  wretch  has  outlawed  himself.  Society  can  no  more 
tolerate  such  an  insult  to  its  peace  than  it  can  permit 
a  tiger  to  go  at  large.  It  is  under  no  obligation  to  him 
whatever.  It  is  the  people  dealing  with  him  that  should 
concern  us.  We  ought  to  keep  them  from  brutalizing 
themselves  and  their  children.  We  must  put  down 
lynching  with  gentle  firmness.  The  first  thing  to  do  is 
to  shorten  the  "  law's  delay  "  as  much  as  possible.  After 
the  State  has  made  the  enabling  constitutional  amend 
ment,  if  such  be  necessary,  let  an  act  provide  that  when 
ever  an  alleged  crime  likely  to  excite  popular  violence 
has  been  committed  the  governor  select  a  judge  to  try 
and  finally  dispose  of  the  case,  three  days  only,  say, 
being  allowed  for  motion  for  new  trial  or  taking  direct 

that  will  make  the  scholar  pay  as  he  goes,  out  of  his  own  work,  for  his 
subsistence  and  expense  of  education  during  the  entire  course,  deserves 
respectful  and  thoughtful  consideration.  In  its  brevity,  and  at  the  same 
time  variety  and  fulness,  coming  as  it  does  at  the  beginning  of  a  new 
era,  it  reminds  me  of  Sullivan's  tract  which  some  years  ago  started  the 
American  agitation  for  direct  legislation,  with  store  of  examples  and  ex. 
position  almost  sufficient  for  its  entire  needs. 

The  above  had  been  written  when  Booker  Washington's  "Working 
with  the  Hands"  came  along.  The  well-chosen  title  informs  accurately 
as  to  the  subject  of  the  book.  Its  scope  covers  working  with  the  hands 
from  its  beginning  in  childhood  to  the  close  of  life.  As  illustration  of 
his  principles  Dr.  Washington  circumstantially  tells  of  the  beneficent  in 
dustrial  and  moral  training  given  at  Tuskegee,  in  all  its  many  departments, 
to  children,  youth,  and  adults,  in  everything  which  it  is  important  that  a 
negro  of  either  sex  should  know  how  to  do.  Besides  its  wisdom,  its  atten 
tion-commanding  and  interest-exciting  style  deserves  high  commendation. 
Any  reader  longing  for  the  day  of  real  education  to  dawn  who  opens  the 
book  will  go  to  the  end,  without  skipping,  in  a  delightful  gallop.  It  is 
my  conviction  that  it  will  be  of  far  more  advantage  to  the  white  in 
dustrial  and  technological  schools  than  to  those  for  which  it  is  specially 
intended  by  the  author. 


The  Race  Question --in  Detail      421 

bill  of  exceptions;  both  the  supreme  court  and  the 
court  below  to  proceed  as  fast  as  may  be  through  all 
stages  until  acquittal  or  execution.  Let  the  governor 
earnestly  ask  for  some  such  measure,  and  let  him  also, 
after  he  gets  it,  impressively  appeal  to  the  people  to 
assist  in  enforcing  the  law.  With  this  preparation,  more 
than  ninety  per  cent  of  the  whites  will  approve  the  most 
decided  action  of  the  military  protecting  prisoners,  if 
that  be  necessary.  Just  at  this  time  (September  27, 
1904)  there  is  a  very  decided  manifestation  of  anti- 
lynching  public  opinion  in  the  south.  We  should  strike 
while  the  iron  is  hot,  and  bring  it  about  that  the  law 
itself  make  quick  riddance  of  the  ravisher.  It  should  be 
a  spur  to  us  that  the  party  opposed  in  politics  to  the 
great  majority  of  southerners  finds  much  support  and 
help  from  every  lynching  in  this  section.  Why  should 
we  play  into  its  hands? 

The  last  thing  that  I  have  to  say  is  that  the  south 
ought  to  invite  immigrants  only  of  white  blood.  We 
want  no  settlers  from  whose  intermarriage  mongrels 
would  spring.  All  Europeans  should  receive  welcome 
—  the  Germans  perhaps  the  warmest.  But  in  my  judg 
ment  those  that  will  most  advantage  us  are  the  truckmen, 
growers  of  the  smaller  and  larger  fruits,  grass,  grain,  and 
stock  farmers,  manufacturers,  miners,  builders,  contract 
ors,  business  men,  and  skilled  laborers,  of  the  north.  It 
looks  now  as  if  the  cotton  mills  of  England  as  well  as  of 
the  north  would  be  profited  by  coming  to  us;  and  it 
also  seems  probable  that  there  will  be  for  many  years 
so  great  a  demand  for  our  cotton  that  the  worn-out  soil 
of  the  older  parts  of  the  lower  south  must  be  restored  to 
more  than  virgin  richness  by  the  method  which  Dr. 
Moore  has  patented  and  made  a  gift  of  to  the  nation,  or 
some  other  intensive  culture ;  and  that  there  must  be 
consequently  great  multiplication  of  southern  mill-opera- 


422  The  Brothers'  War 

tives  and  agricultural  workers  in  the  near  future.  Recall 
what  we  have  said  in  the  last  chapter  as  to  the  future 
promise  of  the  section.  Every  day  the  south  by  dis 
closing  some  new  opportunity  cogently  makes  new  invi 
tation  to  immigrants.  It  is  the  interest  as  well  as  the 
duty  of  the  nation  to  remove  the  great  clog  upon  devel 
opment  of  the  south.  That  clog  is  the  presence  of  some 
millions  of  tmassimilable  negroes  in  the  section.  It  is 
also  the  best  interest  and  the  highest  duty  of  the  nation 
to  segregate  these  negroes  into  a  territory  of  their  own. 
As  Bishop  Holsey  says,  and  what  I  believe  with  my 
whole  soul,  "  The  union  of  the  States  will  never  be  fully 
and  perfectly  recemented  with  tenacious  integrity  until 
black  Ham  and  white  Japheth  dwell  together  in  separate 
tents."  i 

I  must  add  an  epilogue  to  these  chapters  on  the  race 
question  as  I  did  to  that  on  Toombs. 

Brothers  and  sisters  of  the  north,  you  should  learn 
why  there  is  a  solid  south.  There  is  but  one  cause.  It 
is  the  menace  to  the  whites  from  the  political  power 
given  the  negroes  by  the  fifteenth  amendment.  There 
is  nothing  in  your  section  —  in  its  past  or  its  present  — 
from  which  I  can  illustrate  to  you  the  gravity  of  this 
menace  to  us.  In  not  one  of  your  States  are  there  igno 
rant  negroes  in  so  great  a  number  that,  by  combining  with 
the  debased  whites,  they  can  make  for  it  such  a  constitu 
tion  and  laws  and  set  up  such  authorities  as  they  please. 
We,  your  brothers  and  sisters  of  the  south,  have  lived 
under  the  rule  of  this  foulest  of  coalitions.  We  know 
from  actual  experience  how  it  plunders  and  preys  upon 
honest  workers,  producers,  and  property  owners;  how  it 
licenses  and  fosters  crime.  In  my  own  State,  from  the 
first  day  that  a  governor,  elected  by  fiat  voters  and 
1  Book  cited,  119. 


The  Race  Question  —  in  Detail      423 

ex-whites,  as  we  called  the  latter,  was  inaugurated,  until 
we  virtually  restored  the  supremacy  of  our  race  by 
carrying  the  three  days'  election  in  December,  1870, 
fifty  dollars  would  get  a  pardon  for  the  greatest  offence, 
and  robberies,  burglaries,  horse-stealing,  and  the  like 
each  went  free  for  a  much  smaller  sum.  Is  it  forgotten 
that  the  negro  speaker  was  voted  one  thousand  dollars 
by  a  South  Carolina  legislature,  ostensibly  as  extra  com 
pensation  for  unusual  services,  but  really  of  purpose  to 
reimburse  him  for  a  bet  lost  upon  a  horse  race?  Why, 
the  foremost  of  our  people  in  virtue,  wisdom,  and  patri 
otism  were  agreed  that  these  sordid  tyrannies  should  be 
subverted  at  once  and  at  any  cost  to  ourselves.  The 
emergency  justified  any  practice,  device,  or  stratagem 
at  the  polls  by  which  we  could  defend  our  homes,  fami 
lies,  and  subsistence  against  assassins  of  the  public  peace, 
wholesale  robbers  of  the  people,  and  instigators  and 
protectors  of  every  crime.  It  justified  the  shotgun  and 
six-shooter  in  politics  just  as  legitimate  war  justifies  the 
musket  in  the  hands  of  the  soldier.  It  called  forth  most 
righteously  the  Ku-Klux.  That  spontaneous  resistance 
finds  a  close  parallel  in  the  battles  of  Lexington  and 
Bunker  Hill,  fought  before  American  independence  was 
declared.  But  the  Ku-Klux  fought  for  something  still 
dearer  than  the  dear  cause  for  which  our  forefathers 
bled  in  the  two  battles  just  mentioned.  Had  the  latter 
failed  in  the  war  they  had  thus  begun,  their  children  and 
people  would  nevertheless  have  had  such  good  govern 
ment  as  England  is  now  giving  the  defeated  Boers ;  but 
had  the  southern  whites  failed  in  their  defence,  their  land 
would  have  for  long  years  been  befouled  like  Hayti,  and 
those  who  had  not  been  slaughtered  unspeakably  de 
graded.  I  think  that  all  our  countrymen  who  so  right 
fully  eulogize  the  heroes  of  Lexington  and  Bunker  Hill 
should  also  learn  to  give  the  greater  praise  to  the  south- 


424  The  Brothers'  War 

ern  heroes  whose  indomitable  spirit  routed  the  madmen 
that,  with  all  the  power  of  the  federal  government  in 
their  hands,  tried  their  best  to  give  the  section  over  to 
negro  rulers.  Brothers  and  sisters,  "  picture  it,  think  of 
it,"  until  you  can  fully  understand  that  hour  of  our  trial. 
All  my  northern  acquaintances  who  have  resided  in  the 
south  for  several  years  —  they  are  many  —  come  to  look 
at  the  subject  just  as  the  natives  do.  A  candid  and 
honest  settler  from  Vermont  has  told  me  how  he  was 
made  to  change  his  mind.  Conversing  with  a  southerner, 
he  had  reprehended  the  different  ways  in  which  the 
negro's  ballot  had  been  rendered  nugatory.  The  other 
replied,  "  Suppose  that  there  was  an  incursion  of  Indians 
given  suffrage  into  your  State  in  such  a  mass  as  to  make 
them  seventy-five  per  cent  of  all  the  voters,  would  n't 
you  whites  in  some  way  manage  either  to  outvote  or 
outcount  them ! "  The  Vermonter  answered  in  the 
affirmative.  We  had  to  deliver  ourselves.  We  used  the 
only  means  at  our  command. 

It  was  not  to  be  thought  of  that  these  negro  govern 
ments  be  endured,  even  if  tempered  by  the  Ku-Klux, 
for  government  is  in  its  nature  lasting  and  permanent 
while  the  other  was  only  temporary.  They  would  have 
gradually  gathered  strength.  Then  there  would  have 
been  rapid  enrichment  of  a  few  exceptional  negroes 
and  rapid  expulsion  of  the  whites  impoverished  by 
emancipation,  from  all  their  little  that  was  left.  And 
then,  the  leading  negroes  desiring  nothing  else  so 
much,  there  would  have  come  many  white  men  and 
women,  each  one  willing  to  climb  out  of  the  depths  of 
want  by  intermarriage  with  a  prosperous  negro.  Who 
can  predict  what  would  have  been  the  future  of  mon- 
grelism  thus  beginning?  We  of  the  south  are  most 
conscientiously  solid  against  what  we  know  from  actual 
trial  to  be  the  worst  and  most  corrupting  of  all  govern- 


The  Race  Question  —  in  Detail      425 

ment;  and  we  are  still  more  solid  against  everything 
that  tends  to  promote  amalgamation.  Can  you  blame 
us  for  standing  in  serried  phalanx  by  white  domination 
and  against  the  misrule  exampled  in  the  early  years  of 
reconstruction,  and  for  our  own  uncontaminated  white 
blood  and  against  fusion  with  the  negro?  We  must 
be  solid  in  the  face  of  these  dangers,  and  as  long  as 
they  are  threatened  by  the  presence  of  millions  of 
negroes  in  our  midst.  There  is  no  other  solidity  in  the 
south.  In  all  matters  of  the  locality  republicans  and 
democrats  count  alike.  When  one  offers  to  vote  in  the 
primary,  if  his  name  is  on  the  registry  list,  and  he  ap 
pears  on  inspection  to  be  white,  his  vote  is  accepted ; 
and  he  generally  casts  that  vote,  not  for  the  interest  of 
a  political  party,  but  for  that  of  the  public.  The  tri 
umphant  election  in  November,  1904,  of  independents 
or  democrats,  in  four  northern  States  which  at  the  same 
time  went  for  Mr.  Roosevelt,  indicates  solidity  for  the 
true  local  welfare  of  the  people  as  against  the  behests  of 
party.  So  what  the  white  primary  has  produced  in  the 
south,  has  commenced  in  the  north.  And  the  result  in 
Missouri,  voting  for  Roosevelt,  republican,  and  Folk, 
democrat,  shows  that  what  we  may  call  federal  inde- 
pendentism  has  commenced  in  the  south.  This  will 
spread  as  the  people  learn  it  does  not  hurt  them  to 
split  their  tickets  while  voting  upon  national  questions, 
if  they  but  maintain  their  solidity  while  voting  upon 
State  or  municipal. 

Now  may  I  be  allowed  some  decided  words,  most 
kindly  and  inoffensively  spoken,  as  to  appointing 
negroes  to  federal  offices  in  the  south.  It  is  no  sound 
argument  for  it  that  now  and  then  some  negro  may 
have  been  appointed  in  a  northern  community  which 
manifested  no  opposition.  Consider  the  case  of  Mr. 
William  H.  Lewis,  a  negro  lately  made  assistant  district 


426  The  Brothers'  War 

attorney  in  Boston  by  Mr.  Roosevelt.  He  is  a  Harvard 
graduate,  was  captain  of  the  Harvard  eleven  while  in 
college,  had  represented  Cambridge  in  the  Massachu 
setts  legislature,  and  the  community  was  not  at  all 
averse  to  his  appointment.1  Therefore  when  it  was 
made  there  was  no  disregard  of  the  wishes  and  feelings 
of  Boston  and  the  regions  adjoining.  But  when  a 
negro  is  given  office  in  the  south,  it  is  felt  by  all  the 
community  to  be  an  insult.  Would  President  Roose 
velt  cram  the  appointment  of  a  white  down  the  throats 
of  a  northern  community  in  which  all  the  best  citizens 
protested  against  it?  Would  he  not  confess  to  himself 
that  the  wishes  and  feelings  of  these  good  people  ought 
to  be  respected,  even  if  he  considered  them  foolish  and 
unreasonable?  It  seems  to  me  that  he  would,  and  that 
he  would  find  for  the  place  somebody  else  in  his  party 
acceptable  to  the  locality.  Why  should  he  not  do  the 
like  when  his  southern  brothers  and  sisters  who  have 
such  convincing  reasons  against  the  encouragement  of 
negroes  in  their  politics,  protest  unanimously  against 
his  filling  an  office  in  their  midst  with  a  negro?  Will 
he  snub  them  because  a  negro  has  more  sacred  right 
than  a  white  ?  Is  that  what  he  means  by  keeping  open 
the  door  of  hope  and  opportunity?  Or  will  he  snub 
them  because  enough  of  punishment  has  not  yet  been 
given  them,  and  because  the  south  is  still  a  province  or 
dependency  on  which  he  is  justified  in  quartering  his 
partisans  and  pets  without  regard  to  the  feelings  and 
wishes  of  all  the  better  inhabitants? 

Brothers  and  sisters  of  the  north,  I  cannot  believe 
that  any  one  of  you  who  impartially  considers  the  subject, 
would  ever  approve  appointing  even  the  most  competent 
and  deserving  negro  to  a  southern  office  in  the  teeth  of 
universal  objection  by  the  whites  of  the  community. 
1  See  Collier's  Weekly  for  November  26,  1904. 


The  Race  Question --in  Detail      427 

My  last  word  is  to  implore  every  honest  one  in  the 
country  to  lay  aside  all  prejudice  and  master  the  south 
ern  situation  before  judging.  Whoever  does  this, 
whoever  will  accurately  place  himself  in  the  shoes  of  a 
good  southern  citizen,  will,  I  most  firmly  believe, 
approve  the  attitude  of  the  south,  with  his  whole  heart 
and  soul. 


APPENDIX 

THE  OLD  AND  NEW  SOUTH,  a  Centennial  article  for  the  Inter 
national  Review,  afterwards  corrected  and  published  sepa 
rately.  New  York:  A.  S.  Barnes  &  Co.  1876. 

THE  approach  of  the  Centennial  Celebration  is  not  hailed 
in  the  south  with  the  demonstrative  joy  of  the  north. 
It  would  be  out  of  taste  to  expect  that  the  former  should  ap 
pear  to  triumph  greatly  over  the  life  of  the  nation  preserved  at 
the  cost  of  her  recent  overthrow.  Her  late  antagonist  can  re 
joice  in  a  vast  and  happy  population,  great  material  prosperity, 
and  the  fresh  fame  of  a  world-renowned  success.  It  is  meet, 
while  remembering  she  has  so  lately  saved  the  union  by  her 
stupendous  armipotence,  that  the  north  should  exult  as  a 
people  never  did  before.  The  south  has  been  made  to  feel 
the  pangs  of  a  sudden  impoverishment  and  the  incalculable 
discomfort  of  complete  economical  unsettlement ;  and  she  has 
not  learned  the  new  lessons  which  she  must  learn  to  become 
self-sustaining  and  progressive.  But  her  earnest  spirits,  doing 
painfully  the  slow  task  of  repairing  lost  fortunes  ;  seeking  after 
the  system  proper  to  succeed  planting  ;  striving  to  make  their 
homes  pleasant  again  and  to  give  their  children  a  fair  hope  in 
the  land,  —  these  intent  workers,  who  are  most  of  them  scarred 
confederate  veterans,  even  if  they  will  not  say  it  loudly, 
have  come  around  to  hold  in  steadfast  faith  that  it  is  far  better 
the  Blue  Cross  fell,  and  the  American  union  stands  forever  un 
challengeable  hereafter.  And  they  have  brought  with  them  the 
great  mass  of  their  people.  They  cannot  joy  so  happily  as  the 
north,  but  they  have  a  warm  welcome  for  the  Great  Commem 
oration.  For  they  see  that  the  evils  which  followed  as  the 
scourge  of  defeat  are  soon  to  pass  away,  while  the  fall  of 


43°  Appendix 

slavery  and  the  failure  of  secession  are  to  prove  greater  and 
greater  blessings  as  years  roll  on. 

And  so  the  time  has  come  for  a  southerner  calmly  to  dis 
cuss  the  past,  present,  and  future  of  the  south.  He  has  no  use 
for  the  methods  of  popular  and  unscientific  politics,  wherein 
everything  is  blamed  or  applauded  as  being  the  result  of  party 
measures.  The  intentions  and  motives  of  the  actors,  on  both 
sides  of  the  late  strife,  will  give  but  proximate  explanations. 
How  the  two  sections  became,  to  use  the  fine  phrase  of  Von 
Hoist,  economically  contrasted ;  how  the  southern  people 
and  their  representative  politicians  were  bred,  under  their  cir 
cumstances,  into  opposition  to  the  union ;  and  how  the  northern 
people  and  their  representative  politicians  were  bred,  under 
widely  different  circumstances,  into  love  of  the  union ;  how  the 
long  clashing  in  politics  culminated  in  civil  war ;  how  the  south 
was  utterly  crushed  and  her  whole  industrial  system  destroyed ; 
how  she  slowly  re-erects  herself  into  a  new  condition  better 
than  the  old,  —  the  ultimate  solution  of  these  questions  can  only 
be  found  by  discussing  them  in  the  light  of  those  laws  of  de 
velopment  which  give  every  community  a  policy  suited  to  what 
it  discerns  to  be  its  best  interest.  These  laws  are  of  far  more 
importance  than  the  politician,  who  is  but  their  creature.  Leav 
ing  to  others  to  fight  over  the  old  struggles  of  the  political 
arena  and  bandy  hard  words  with  one  another,  we  will  try  to 
discuss  our  subject  in  the  manner  we  have  indicated  to  be 
appropriate. 

To  understand  the  present  and  future,  we  must  first  under 
stand  the  past.  To  understand  the  New  south,  we  must  first 
understand  the  Old  south,  the  distinguishing  feature  of  which 
was  negro  slavery.  Mr.  Stephens,  then  Vice-President  of  the 
southern  confederacy,  in  an  address  to  a  large  assembly  in 
Savannah,  in  March,  1861,  said  of  the  new  government:  "Its 
foundations  are  laid,  its  corner-stone  rests,  upon  the  great  truth, 
that  the  negro  is  not  equal  to  the  white  man ;  that  slavery  — 
subordination  to  the  superior  race  —  is  his  natural  and  normal 
condition."  There  is  no  doubt  slavery  was  the  corner-stone 
of  southern  society ;  and  when  it  was  removed,  four  years  later, 


Appendix  431 


a  thorough  disintegration  of  the  whole  fabric  was  the  logical 
result. 

When  our  country  was  first  settled,  the  southern  regions 
were  far  more  attractive  in  soil  and  climate ;  and  their  other 
natural  resources  —  minerals,  good  harbors,  navigable  streams, 
water-power  idling  everywhere,  to  mention  no  more  —  were 
equal  to  those  of  the  other  section.  The  subsequent  advance 
ment  of  the  north  has  been  so  rapid  as  to  excite  the  wonder  of 
the  world ;  while  it  is  said  by  us  of  the  south,  jesting  upon  our 
worn-out  and  exhausted  land,  that  we  have  done  worse  for  the 
country  than  the  Indians  before  us,  who  stayed  here  many 
centuries  and  yet  left  the  soil  as  good  as  they  found  it. 

The  plantation  system  was  the  great  barrier  to  southern  prog 
ress.  From  its  first  historical  appearance,  among  the  Cartha 
ginians,  from  whom  the  Romans  seem  to  have  derived  it,  this 
rude  and  wholesale  method  of  farming  has  rested  on  slavehold- 
ing.  Its  workings  have  been  similar  everywhere.  In  Italy,  un 
der  the  Roman  republic,  absorbing  the  petty  holdings,  it  drove 
out  the  small  farmer  ;  it  destroyed  the  former  respect  for  trades 
and  handicrafts,  and  brought  them  into  disfavor ;  it  prevented 
the  development  of  the  industrial  arts  ;  it  created  a  non-recip 
rocal  commerce.  Centuries  later,  it  did  the  same  things  in 
our  southern  States. 

A  sketch  of  the  leading  features  and  results  of  the  plantation 
system,  as  it  existed  in  America,  is  our  proper  beginning. 

The  driver,  as  the  negro  foreman  was  called,  was  not  very 
common  in  the  south,  and  was  generally  under  the  superintend 
ence  of  the  overseer.  Could  the  planters  have  made  a  good 
overseer  of  the  driver,  of  course  they  would  have  consulted 
their  interest,  and  reproduced  the  ancient  slave-steward  of 
Rome.  Slaveholders  keep  their  slaves  under  careful  surveil 
lance,  but  they  do  not  usually  overlook  them  in  person.  It  is 
not  often  that  a  master  engages  in  an  employment  which  brings 
him  into  daily  and  intimate  contact  with  the  lowest  orders,  and 
which  he  instinctively  feels  to  be  degrading.  The  planter 
could  have  neither  his  first  choice,  which  would  have  been  a 
slave  overseer,  nor  his  second  choice,  a  superintendent  from 


43 2  Appendix 

his  own  rank  in  society ;  and  so,  as  the  next  best  thing,  he  took 
as  overseer  a  white  hireling  from  the  non-slaveholding  class. 
The  tillage  of  the  fields  was  thus  intrusted  to  the  overseers, 
who  were,  for  the  most  part,  men  of  little  education  and  busi 
ness  skill,  and  who  had  no  interest  in  their  employment  ex 
cept  to  draw  its  wages.  Thus  the  foremost,  if  not  the  only, 
southern  industry  was  managed  by  incompetent  and  careless 
agents. 

The  Roman  master,  in  the  later  days  of  the  republic,  having 
always  vast  markets  open  to  him,  shunned  the  expense  of  pro 
viding  for  women  and  children,  and  bought  new  slaves  instead 
of  breeding  them ;  but  the  closing  of  the  African  slave-trade, 
and  the  softer  hearts  and  manners  of  modern  times,  led  our 
planters,  at  last,  to  rely  on  propagation  as  their  only  source  of 
supply.  The  negroes  were,  therefore,  well  cared  for,  and,  in  a 
genial  clime,  increased  rapidly.  This  increase,  however,  did 
not  keep  pace  with  the  increasing  demand  for  southern  prod 
ucts,  and  so  the  market  value  of  the  slave  rose  rapidly.  To 
the  Roman  slaveholder,  land  was  almost  everything,  and  his 
rustic  slaves  nothing  ;  to  the  southerner,  the  slaves  were  almost 
everything,  and  the  land  nothing.  There  was  no  careful  culti 
vation  of  the  soil,  no  judicious  rotation  of  crops,  and  no  ade 
quate  system  of  fertilization.  Southern  husbandry  was,  for  the 
most  part,  a  reckless  pillage  of  the  bounty  of  nature.  The 
planter  became  possessed  with  a  roving  spirit,  and  was  con 
tinually  seeking  "  fresh  land,"  as  virgin  soil  was  termed.  In  the 
older  sections,  where  there  was  most  stability,  the  best  farming 
consisted  in  judiciously  eking  out  the  natural  fertility  of  the 
fields,  and  when  that  was  exhausted,  in  leaving  them  to  recuper 
ate  by  years  of  rest.  Thus  a  given  working  force  required,  year 
by  year,  a  greater  and  greater  allowance  of  land,  and  the  plan 
tations  became  steadily  larger,  the  small  farmer  retiring,  and 
the  white  population  becoming  continually  less.  Many  of  these 
older  sections  turned,  from  being  agricultural  communities,  into 
nurseries,  rearing  slaves  for  the  younger  States  where  virgin  soil 
was  abundant.  The  fertile  lands  of  the  new  settlements,  by 
yielding  bountiful  crops,  gave  fresh  impulse  to  the  plantation 


Appendix  433 

system,  and  here  the  small  holdings  were  absorbed  more  rapidly 
than  they  had  been  in  the  older  States.  The  southern  slaves, 
regarded  as  property,  were  the  most  desirable  investment  open 
to  the  generality  of  people  that  has  ever  been  known.  They 
were  patient,  tractable,  and  submissive,  and  never  revolted  in 
combined  insurrections,  as  did  the  slaves  of  antiquity.  Their 
labor  was  richly  remunerative ;  their  market  value  was  con 
stantly  rising ;  they  were  everywhere  more  easily  convertible 
into  money  than  the  best  securities  ;  and  their  natural  increase 
was  so  rapid  that  a  part  of  it  could  be  squandered  by  a  shiftless 
owner  every  year  to  make  both  ends  meet,  and  he  still  be  left 
enough  of  accumulation  to  enrich  him  steadily.  And  so  the 
plantation,  or  rather  the  slave,  system  swallowed  up  everything 
else. 

There  were  no  distinct  industrial  classes.  There  were  negro 
blacksmiths,  negro  carpenters,  negro  shoemakers,  etc.,  all  over 
the  land,  but  they  were  mere  appendages  to  the  plantations, 
and  far  inferior  in  capacity  and  skill  to  the  artisan  slaves  of 
antiquity. 

The  commerce  of  the  south  was  non-reciprocal.  She  traded 
raw  produce  for  manufactures  which  she  should  have  made  her 
self,  or  which  she  should  have  got  in  exchange  for  manufactures 
of  her  own.  The  over-mastering  energy  of  slave  property,  dis 
solving,  as  it  were,  all  things  into  itself,  kept  her  from  that  de 
velopment  of  trades,  manufactories,  and  industrial  arts  which  is 
the  solid  and  unprecedented  progress,  and  far  more  durable 
wealth,  of  the  north. 

There  were  a  few  exceptions  in  the  way  of  restorative  agri 
culture,  and  of  diversified  investments  of  capital  in  railways, 
manufactories,  inland  navigation,  and  mercantile  enterprises. 
All  along  the  northern  border  there  were  efforts  to  let  go  slavery, 
and  non-slave  industry  was  slowly  emerging  in  a  few  places ; 
but  these  things  were  as  dust  in  the  balances.  The  slave  system 
was  rooted  in  the  best  portions  of  the  land,  and  nearly  all  of  the 
productive  wealth  of  the  south  was  in,  or  dependent  upon, 
planting.  Implacable  enemies  of  slavery  were  rapidly  increas 
ing  in  numbers  and  power,  but  she  continued  blindly  sacrificing 

28 


434  Appendix 

everything  to  rear  negroes.  When  actual  emancipation  came  — 
that  nipping  May  frost  —  the  south  showed,  on  a  gigantic  scale, 
in  her  poverty  and  one  solitary  and  portentously  dried-up 
source  of  wealth,  a  parallel  to  Ireland,  smitten  with  famine  by 
the  sudden  failure  of  her  only  supply  of  food.  When  the  char 
ity  of  the  world  and  the  returning  bounty  of  nature  had  again 
fed  the  Green  Isle,  everything  fell  back  into  the  old  track,  and 
she  could  go  on  smoothly  as  before.  But  not  so  with  the  south  : 
her  wealth  has  fled;  her  occupation,  the  plantation  system, 
is  gone ;  and  she  must,  for  a  generation,  grope  painfully  in 
the  dark,  trying  novel  ways  of  subsisting,  enduring  want  and 
many  failures,  before  finding  again  the  light  of  plenty  and 
comfort. 

The  duties  of  the  planter  have  changed.  The  management  of 
a  farm  is  not  like  that  of  a  plantation,  and  one  skilled  in  the 
management  of  slaves  is  not  necessarily  efficient  in  the  directing 
of  freedmen.  Many  other  countries  have  been  impoverished 
by  wars ;  but  is  not  this  instantaneous  and  almost  complete 
taking  away  of  a  great  people's  mode  of  living  unique  in  his 
tory  ?  The  most  resolute  secessionist  would  have  lost  heart  and 
put  up  his  sword,  could  he  have  seen,  before  the  war  com 
menced,  how  easily  the  solitary  prop  of  southern  wealth  and 
comfort  could  be  overturned,  to  be  set  up  no  more.  But  in 
none  of  the  ablest  of  the  anti-secession  arguments  of  1860  were 
the  consequences  of  defeat  predicted. 

Some  portions  of  our  country  have  been  built  up  into  a  high 
degree  of  prosperity  by  a  steady  influx  of  foreign  settlers.  How 
much  has  been  added  to  the  power  and  wealth  of  the  northern 
States  by  the  immigration  from  the  old  lands  of  those  who,  when 
first  they  come,  can  do  no  more  than  subsist  themselves  by 
their  own  industry,  almost  defies  computation.  How  the  force 
of  the  preponderant  population  of  the  north  pressed  upon  the 
south  during  the  war,  and  at  last  crushed  her  down  !  Slavery 
repelled  the  free  immigrant  from  the  south,  and  he  went  else 
where  with  his  power  to  enrich  and  defend. 

The  uniform  and  rapid  advancement  of  civilization  is  mainly 
due  to  the  struggle  of  the  poor  to  better  their  condition.  These 


Appendix  435 

efforts  result  in  complex  division  of  labor,  accumulation  of 
wealth,  and  better  than  these,  in  the  production  of  a  great 
population  engaged  in  diversified  industries.  In  such  a  popu 
lation,  improving  year  by  year  in  business  habits,  consists  the 
strength  of  a  nation.  The  slave  had  no  hope  of  rising,  and  the 
system  of  which  he  was  a  part  repelled  free  workingmen,  and 
thus  the  south  lost  the  benign  emulation  and  energy  of  a 
lower  class.  The  ancient  slaves  were  not  alone  rural  laborers 
and  domestic  servants,  as  were  those  of  the  south.  The  former, 
being  of  kindred  blood  with  their  masters  and  near  their  level 
in  natural  capacity,  were  initiated  in  the  various  industries,  some 
of  which  flourished  greatly  under  their  management.  Though 
the  slaves  of  old  were  very  degraded,  they  were  not  as  low  and 
grovelling  as  those  of  our  day.  Enfranchisement  was  common  ; 
and,  in  a  few  generations  afterwards,  the  descendants  of  the 
freedman  were  indistinguishable  amid  the  body  of  free  citizens. 
The  ancient  states  were  not,  therefore,  prevented  by  slavery 
from  having  advanced  and  diversified  industries,  nor  were  they 
denied  the  impulse  of  a  possible  rising  from  the  lower  to  the 
higher  classes.  But  the  American  slave  was  of  the  remotest  race, 
far  below  his  master  in  development,  and  the  horror  of  receiving 
him  into  the  body  of  free  citizens  grew  continually  stronger. 
The  law  discouraged  manumission,  and  frowned  upon  the  in 
crease  of  freedmen.  Thus,  the  African  slavery  of  the  south  was 
the  most  hopeless  form  of  servitude  the  civilized  world  has  ever 
seen  ;  and,  by  preventing  the  formation  oi  a  great  class  of  free 
men,  engaged  in  n^pf rtnfik  indmrryj  it  In'lVd  the  very  roots  of 
social  progress.  These  influences  of  slavery,  so  repugnant  to 
American  ideas,  will  be  more  vividly  seen  and  understood  in 
the  answer  to  the  question,  What  would  have  been  the  pres 
ent  condition  of  the  south  had  it  not  been  for  slavery?  Un 
doubtedly  her  land  would  have  smiled  with  a  fertility  richer  than 
the  endowment  of  nature ;  her  industrial  arts  would,  ere  this 
time,  have  branched  out  into  multifarious  activity;  her  own 
ships  would  have  been  carrying  her  produce  and  manufactures 
abroad  ;  and,  as  the  crown  of  all,  she  would  have  had  a  teeming 
population  of  workers,  whose  education  in  the  methods  of  self- 


436  Appendix 

support  would  have  been  the  assurance  of  unlimited  future  ad 
vancement.  In  brief,  in  all  the  elements  of  the  greatness  of  a 
community,  the  south  might  now  have  equalled,  if  not  excelled, 
the  north. 

But  there  are  some  other  effects  of  slavery  to  be  noted  before 
the  outline  of  the  Old  south  can  be  clearly  and  fully  drawn. 

Among  the  planters,  costly  and  liberal  instruction  was  given 
to  a  few  of  those  who  were  to  adorn  places  of  leisured  ease,  or 
to  fill  the  necessary  professions  and  public  positions ;  but,  in  the 
midst  of  the  sparse  and  shifting  rural  population,  there  could 
not  be  that  devotion  to  the  education  of  all,  which  is  one  of  the 
most  conspicuous  glories  of  the  northern  States. 

In  consequence  of  the  sparseness  of  the  planters  and  their 
roving  habits,  there  was  not  that  subdivision  of  different  portions 
of  the  counties  into  small  self-governing  wards,  which  Jefferson 
so  fondly  desired.  He  said  of  the  New  England  townships, 
that  they  had  "  proved  themselves  the  wisest  invention  ever  de 
vised  by  the  wit  of  man  for  the  perfect  exercise  of  self-govern 
ment,  and  for  its  preservation."  He  also  said  that  he  considered 
the  continuance  of  republican  government  as  absolutely  hanging 
on  two  hooks,  to  wit,  "  the  public  education,  and  the  subdivision 
into  wards."  This  government  of  every  vicinage  in  its  home 
affairs  by  itself,  as  originated  in  New  England,  and  is  now  spread 
far  and  wide  throughout  the  northern  States,  is  the  most  benefi 
cent  achievement  of  American  democracy.  By  this  coercion  of 
the  citizen  to  participate  in  the  constant  administration  of  public 
matters  directly  concerning  his  interests,  self-government  be 
comes,  as  it  should  be,  the  business  of  everybody,  and  every 
body  is  compulsorily  educated  in  the  best  of  all  learning  for 
the  race. 

The  finale  of  slavery  remains  to  be  told.  As  opposition 
to  it  increased  from  without,  the  south  became  more  and 
more  closely  united.  She  honestly  believed  that  wanton  inter- 
meddlers  were  attacking  her  dearest  rights.  The  steady  and 
continually  strengthening  warfare  against  slavery,  and  her  con 
tinuous  and  earnest  defence  of  it,  began  —  it  is  imposible  to 
determine  precisely  when  —  to  knit  her  into  a  nationality  of  her 


Appendix  437 

own.  He  who  understands  what  Mr.  Bagehot  calls  "  nation- 
making  "  will  discover,  in  the  past  history  of  the  south,  if  he 
looks  attentively,  many  signs  of  this  tendency,  which  steadily  pro 
gressed  un perceived  on  her  part,  and  still  more  so  on  the  part 
of  the  north,  until  the  south  began  to  coalesce  into  a  nation  as 
compact  as  her  scattered  and  random  elements  would  permit. 
The  long  advocacy  and  support  of  slavery  in  the  political  arena 
had  fevered  her  whole  people,  and  finally,  under  these  prompt 
ings  to  a  national  life,  politics  absorbed  nearly  all  of  her  intel 
lectual  powers. 

There  is  a  striking  parallel  between  this  sustained  effort  of  the 
south  and  the  struggle  of  Ireland,  when  the  latter,  for  the  fifty 
years  ending  with  the  advent  of  the  present  century,  was  arrayed 
against  the  British,  in  their  encroachments  upon  her  independ 
ent  government,  During  this  half-century,  Ireland  maintained 
that  she  was  an  independent  integral  part  of  the  British  Empire, 
just  as  Virginia  contended  that  she  was  a  sovereign  in  the  fed 
eration  of  States.  Ireland,  like  a  southern  State,  challenged 
every  seeming  interference,  by  the  general  government,  in  her 
local  affairs ;  and  the  claims  put  forth,  in  each  instance,  were 
inexorably  contested  by  an  adverse  government,  claiming  su 
premacy  and  supported  by  superiority  of  power.  Both  were  on 
the  eve  of  revolutionary  secession  without  knowing  it.  The  re 
sults  in  Ireland  and  the  south  were  similar :  there  was  but  one 
intellectual  activity,  namely,  politics.  The  memory  of  all  Irish 
men  of  that  time  not  forgotten  —  and  many  of  their  names  are 
familiar  words  —  is  nothing  but  resistance  to  English  aggression. 
Even  Curran,  Ireland's  great  forensic  advocate,  made  his  world 
wide  fame  in  defending  Irishmen  against  the  prosecutions  of 
the  British  ministry.  It  was  much  the  same  at  the  south  in  the 
period  antecedent  to  the  civil  war.  She  had  neither  literature 
nor  science ;  but  she  had  statesmen  and  advocates,  who  will  be 
remembered  as  long  as  her  soldiers  and  generals. 

The  national  germ  had  long  been  growing  below  the  surface, 
in  darkness,  and  at  last  it  burst  into  view,  and  shot  up  into  a 
body  of  amazing  proportions.  There  was  not  the  birth  of  a  new 
nation  at  Montgomery  in  1861 ;  only  the  majority  of  this  vigor- 


43  8  Appendix 

ous  young  member  of  the  family  of  nations  was  there  pro 
claimed.  But,  for  all  of  the  eloquence  of  its  orators  and  the 
virtue  and  bravery  of  its  people,  it  was,  as  compared  with  its 
adversary,  in  raw  and  untutored  nonage,  and  the  great  disaster 
that  befell  four  years  afterwards  was  then  preordained.  It  was 
her  unshunnable  fate  that  she  should  be  denationalized  on  the 
battle-field. 

The  late  war  was  a  conflict  between  implacable  enemies. 
Each  belligerent,  standing  up  for  national  life,  was  resistlessly 
coerced  to  fight  to  the  last.  Neither  can  be  blamed.  The  past 
may  be  taxed  with  lack  of  wisdom.  It  may  be  that  as  Scot 
land  and,  more  lately,  Ireland  have  been  peacefully  denational 
ized,  a  preventive,  anticipating  the  dreadful  event  of  war,  might 
years  before  have  been  devised  by  statesmanly  forecast.  The 
actual  combatants  —  the  southener  fighting  for  the  confederacy, 
and  the  northern  soldier  bearing  up  the  flag  of  the  union  —  were 
equals  in  manhood  and  virtue.  The  survivors,  federal  and  con 
federate,  at  last  see  this,  and  therefore  they  go  in  company  to 
decorate  alike  the  graves  of  the  dead  of  both  armies. 

The  cause  of  all  these  evils  —  the  backwardness  and  station- 
ariness  of  the  south  ;  a  wasteful  husbandry,  without  other  indus 
tries  ;  the  instability  of  her  wealth  ;  her  want  of  a  great  class  of 
freemen  engaged  in  the  different  arts ;  her  barbarically  simple 
social  structure;  her  neglect  of  common  schools;  the  absorp 
tion  of  all  her  intellectual  energies  in  feverish  and  revolutionary 
politics ;  and,  finally,  secession  and  the  reddened  ground  of  a 
thousand  battle-fields  —  was  slavery.  It  is  gone.  The  malig 
nant  cancer,  involving,  as  it  seemed,  every  vital  and  menacing 
hideous  and  loathsome  death,  was  plucked  out  by  the  roots  ;  and 
after  a  ten  years'  struggle  of  nature,  we  see  the  body  politic 
slowly  but  surely  reviving  to  a  health  and  soundness  never 
known  before. 

Here  we  find  the  dividing  line  between  the  Old  and  the  New 
south.  The  former  ended,  and  the  latter  began,  with  the  giv 
ing  of  freedom  to  the  negroes  —  an  event  which  will  prove  in 
the  future  to  have  been  an  emancipation  even  more  beneficial 
to  master  than  to  slave.  Immunity  from  all  the  evils  of  slavery 


Appendix  439 

which  we  have  catalogued  will  distinguish  the  New  south  from 
the  Old.1 

The  sudden  impoverishment  of  the  southern  people,  and  the 
unlooked-for  change  in  their  ways  of  living  and  thinking,  had 
they  occurred  in  the  most  peaceful  times,  and  been  followed 
with  the  best  of  government,  would  have  produced  a  profound 
shock  and  a  long  paralysis.  But  the  bitterness  of  subjugation, 
and  the  mistake  of  needlessly  offensive  and  goading  government, 
with  harsh  reconstructive  measures,  have  prolonged  the  lethargy. 
And  yet  the  American  union  shows  benignly  in  the  present  con 
dition  and  promised  future  of  the  section.  The  ten  years  since 

1  The  English  translation  of  the  first  volume  of  Von  Hoist's  "  Consti 
tutional  and  Political  History  of  the  United  States"  has  just  been  pub 
lished.  The  titles  of  the  ninth  and  tenth  chapters,  to  wit,  "  The  Economic 
Contrast  between  the  Free  and  Slave  States,"  and  "  Development  of  the 
Economic  Contrast  between  the  Free  and  Slave  States/'  are  very  apt  and 
striking,  and  the  contents  of  the  chapters  are  profoundly  original  and 
instructive.  Having  ample  space,  the  author  has,  among  other  merits, 
well  handled  the  following  incidents  and  consequences  of  slavery : 

1.  Implacable  hostility  of  slave  and  non-slave  labor. 

2.  Self-protecting  necessity  to  slavery  of  continuous  expansion,  and, 
to  insure  this  expansion,  necessity  that  the  south  keep  political  mastery 
of  the  country. 

3.  Economic  importance  to  south  of  invention  of  cotton-gin  in  1793. 

4.  Exclusive  possession  by  north  of  wholesale  trade. 

5.  Greater  immigration  to  north. 

6.  Missouri  Compromise,  and  rise  therefrom  of  geographical  parties. 

7.  Internal  improvements  and  tariff  passing  into  geographical  ques 
tion. 

8.  Economic  decay  of  south  due  to  slavery,  and  not  to  tariff. 

9.  Opposition  of  slavery  to  the  spirit  of  the  age. 

The  following  is  a  brief  statement  of  the  chief  demerits  of  the  two 
chapters : 

1.  Misstatement  that  there  were  different  circles  of  slaveholders; 
overstatement  of  inhumanity  of  masters;  and  unjust  disparagement  of 
character  of  smaller  slaveholders. 

2.  Failure  to  note  the  great  absorbing  energy  of  slave  property. 

3.  Failure  to  note  the  lack  of  a  population  of  free  workers. 

But  the  work,  considering  the  short  time  the  clouds  of  battle  have  had 
to  clear  away,  recollecting,  too,  that  the  author  is  a  foreigner,  is,  except 
ing  a  little  heated  partisanship  here  and  there,  a  most  valuable  contribu 
tion  to  the  history  of  our  country. 


44°  Appendix 

emancipation  are  instructive.  Slowly  has  the  New  south  been 
disentangling  herself  from  the  debris  of  the  Old,  and  she  has 
emerged  far  enough  to  enable  us  to  perceive  that  a  better  era 
has  commenced.  Much  has  been  lost,  but  more  has  been  saved. 
All  the  germs  of  true  wealth  and  power  and  the  solid  well-being 
of  a  community  have  survived ;  and  solace  for  the  past  and 
earnest  of  a  great  future  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that  she  has 
reached  at  last,  and  for  the  first  time,  a  position  in  which  she  can 
develop  these  elements,  free  from  the  suffocating  hindrances 
of  former  days.  We  may  now  properly  inquire,  What  of  the 
past  does  the  south  retain,  and  in  what  will  consist  her  future 
progress  ? 

She  retains  her  genial  climate,  her  kindly  soil,  and  her  many 
natural  resources.  If  the  peace  of  the  American  union  is 
assured,  as  everything  now  graciously  promises,  these  natural 
advantages  will,  in  a  few  generations,  far  more  than  compensate 
for  all  her  losses,  and  ultimately  place  her  in  the  very  van  of 
progress. 

The  best  inheritance  of  the  New  from  the  Old  south  is  the 
southern  people.  We  have  seen  how  slavery  checked  industrial 
development,  and  how  many  of  its  other  effects  were  hurtful. 
After  allowing  fully  for  all  these,  there  will  be  found  a  great  re 
siduum  of  progressive  energy,  of  intellectual  strength,  and  of 
moral  worth  in  the  people  of  the  southern  States.  They  need 
not  fear  a  comparison,  in  these  respects,  with  the  most  en 
lightened  communities.  Great  men,  like  Washington,  Jefferson, 
Calhoun,  Jackson,  and  Lee ;  political  and  military  heroes, 
judges,  lawyers,  and  orators,  such  as  the  south  has  given  birth 
to,  in  unbroken  succession,  —  are  the  unmistakable  signs  of  a 
great  people. 

The  rank  and  file  of  the  confederate  armies  have  given  proof 
that  the  men  of  the  south  must  be  classed,  in  all  the  elements 
of  complete  character,  with  the  best  that  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  Crime  was  so  infrequent  that  a  single  morning  of  the 
term  of  a  rural  court,  before  the  war,  nearly  always  sufficed  to 
dispose  of  every  indictment ;  there  was  little  want  or  pauper 
ism  ;  virtue  was  everywhere  the  rule  in  private  life,  and  there 


Appendix  441 

was  seldom  even  the  suspicion  of  corruption  in  government  or 
the  administration  of  justice.  The  history  of  this  people  since 
the  war  shows  that  they  are  possessed  of  the  best  Anglo-Saxon 
mettle.  They  are  slowly  beginning  to  thrive  wherever  they 
have  been  left  to  govern  themselves,  in  spite  of  the  complete 
industrial  revolution,  the  loss  of  property,  and  change  of  occu 
pation,  of  which  we  have  written.  And  in  many  places,  where 
reconstruction  has  been  harshest,  and  negro  misrule  yet  pre 
vails,  the  whites  have  developed  an  unlooked-for  self- maintain 
ing  capacity,  and  have  demonstrated  that  even  there  must  be 
the  eventual  predominance  of  intelligence  and  virtue,  should 
"  natural  selection  "  alone  work  to  secure  it. 

The  southern  people  have  learned  much  wisdom  in  the  last 
ten  years.  Their  heavy  vote  in  1872  for  Horace  Greeley  —  a 
man  to  whom  a  foreigner  would  have  supposed  them  unappeas- 
ably  hostile  —  if  there  was  nothing  else,  would  alone  suffice  to 
show  that  they  are  rapidly  laying  aside  all  hindrances  to  prog 
ress.  And  now  that  slavery  is  gone  and  she  has  so  quickly 
conquered  the  animosities  of  the  war,  the  south  may  be  likened 
to  a  capable  and  energetic  young  man,  who,  having  failed,  as 
the  result  of  inevitable  misfortune,  in  a  wrongly-chosen  business, 
has  been  relieved  of  all  embarrassments  and  has  entered  upon 
his  proper  calling.  More  may  reasonably  be  expected  of  such 
a  man  than  of  one  more  prosperous  who  has  not  had  the  like 
discipline. 

As  her  nationalizing  tendency  has  been  destroyed  by  the  re 
moval  of  slavery,  and  as  her  future  must  necessarily  be  shaped 
by  union  influences,  she  will  heartily  embrace  the  political  creed 
of  the  union.  The  doctrine  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  States, 
which  was  advocated  with  very  great  ability  by  many  of  the 
southern  statesmen  —  notably  by  Calhoun,  in  his  speeches  in 
congress,  and  in  his  "Discourse  on  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,"  and  with  still  more  taking  effect  by  Mr.  Stephens 
in  his  "  Constitutional  View  of  the  War  between  the  States," 
—  has  now  no  disciples  at  the  south.  General  Logan  gave  ex 
pression  to  the  prevailing  creed  of  the  present,  when  he  said, 
at  a  recent  reunion  of  former  confederate  companions :  ^ 


44 2  Appendix 

"  In  considering,  then,  the  future  of  the  south,  there  is  one  fact 
suggested  at  the  outset  which  has  been  demonstrated  to  us  by  the 
logic  of  events.  It  is,  that  under  the  operation  of  causes,  which, 
although  unseen  at  the  time,  appear  now  to  have  been  inevitable 
in  their  results,  a  vast  social  organism  has  been  developed,  and  is 
now  so  far  advanced  in  its  growth  as  a  national  body  politic,  and  no 
longer  a  mere  aggregation  of  States,  that  unity  is  a  necessity  of  its 
further  development.  In  reviewing  the  past,  we  can  now  clearly 
see  that  this  national  organism  has  been  gradually  developed;  and, 
while  many  seek  by  various  theories  to  account  for  the  failure  of 
the  confederacy,  the  result  may  be  regarded  as  the  necessary  con 
sequence  of  those  laws  of  development  under  which  this  social 
organism  —  the  United  States — was  being  evolved." 

And  the  south  is  pleased  to  observe  that  there  are  no  genuine 
signs  of  too  much  centralization.  On  the  contrary,  the  town 
system  is  destined  to  spread  fast  and  far ;  and  the  increase  of 
local  option  laws  ;  the  splitting  of  larger  into  smaller  counties ; 
the  strengthening  tendency  to  submit  constitutions  and  many 
legislative  acts  to  voters ;  the  greater  disposition  often  to  amend 
the  State  constitutions  in  the  interests  of  progress ;  the  vigor 
ous  growth  in  each  State  of  its  own  body  of  laws ;  the  rapid 
multiplication  of  towns  and  cities,  with  governments  peculiar  to 
each,  are  some  of  the  many  convincing  proofs  that  local  self- 
government  is  increasing  and  flourishing.  Of  the  last  particular 
Judge  Dillon  says : 

"  We  have  popularized  and  made  use  of  municipal  institutions  to 
such  an  extent  as  to  constitute  one  of  the  most  striking  features  of 
our  government.  It  owes  to  them,  indeed,  in  a  great  degree,  its 
decentralized  character.  When  the  English  Municipal  Corporations 
Reform  Act  of  1835,  was  passed,  there  were,  in  England  and 
Wales,  excluding  London,  only  two  hundred  and  forty-six  places 
exercising  municipal  functions  ;  and  their  aggregate  population  did 
not  exceed  two  millions  of  people.  In  this  country,  our  municipal 
corporations  are  numbered  by  thousands,  and  the  inhabitants  sub 
jected  to  their  rule,  by  millions." 

Reflecting  southerners  see,  in  the  present  condition  of  the 
southern  States,  the  very  strongest  possible  guaranty  that  the 


Appendix  443 


true  balance  between  national  cohesion  and  local  freedom  is  to 
be  preserved.  They  see  that  the  happy  equilibrium  is  of  a 
character  so  permanent  and  stable  as  to  have  survived  the  con 
vulsion  of  civil  war.  The  southern  States  are  not  held  as  con 
quered  provinces.  On  the  contrary,  aside  from  the  abolition  of 
slavery  and  the  fundamental  legislation  securing  to  the  old 
slaves  the  full  fruition  of  their  freedom,  there  has  been  no  per 
ceptible  change  in  the  relations  of  these  States  to  the  United 
States. 

Surely,  to  the  student  of  history,  wherein  vae  victis  /  is  writ 
ten  on  every  page,  this  fact  has  wonderful  significance.  It 
recommends  the  American  form  of  government  to  the  rest  of 
the  world  as  the  incoming  of  the  new  stage  of  civilization, 
wherein  oppression  and  war  shall  become  unknown.  However 
long  contending  armies  may  devour  populations  and  paralyze 
industry  elsewhere,  we  are  assured  that  war-sick  America  will 
fight  with  herself  no  more.  This  assurance  repays  the  south  a 
thousand  fold  for  all  that  she  has  lost  and  endured. 

The  great  economical  interest  of  the  south  is  her  agriculture  ; 
and  in  this  industry,  as  well  as  among  those  who  conduct  it,  a 
constant  transition  has  been  taking  place  during  the  ten  years 
since  emancipation.  There  is  a  melancholy  change  in  the 
homes  of  landholders  from  the  ease  and  comfort  of  ante  bellum 
days.  The  neat  inclosures  have  fallen;  the  pleasant  grounds 
and  the  flower-gardens,  once  so  trim  and  flourishing,  are  a 
waste ;  all  the  old  smiles  and  adornments  are  gone.  Change  at 
home  is  accompanied  by  still  greater  change  without.  The 
negroes  —and  they  constitute  the  great  bulk  of  the  laboring 
population  —  tend  to  become  a  tenantry,  cultivating  the  land, 
in  some  instances,  for  a  part  of  the  produce,  but  oftener  for  a 
fixed  sum  of  money.  Many  of  these  realize  from  their  labors 
little  more  than  enough  to  pay  a  moderate  rent.  Others  work 
for  wages,  either  in  money  or  in  some  portion  of  the  crop  made 
by  their  labor.  As  the  negroes  are  scarce,  and  their  labor  so 
important,  they  have  often,  directly  or  indirectly,  a  voice  in  the 
area  of  land  cultivated,  the  mode  of  cultivation,  and  the  kind  of 
crop  raised.  The  result,  in  many  places,  is  retrogression.  The 


444  Appendix 

face  of  the  country  is  much  altered.  Only  a  small  part  of  the 
land,  as  compared  with  that  tilled  before  the  war,  is  under  cul 
tivation,  the  remainder  becomes  wild.  Could  the  fallen  con 
federates  return  they  would  not  in  many  places  recognize  their 
old  homes.  Nearly  every  man  of  average  business  ability  could 
control  his  slaves,  before  the  war,  with  little  trouble  ;  but  it  now 
requires  far  more  than  ordinary  capacity  to  find  and  keep  good 
tenants,  to  employ  laborers  amid  the  present  scarcity,  and  to 
retain  and  make  them  remunerative  when  employed.  The 
freedman  is  a  different  character  from  his  former  slave  self,  and 
is  to  be  governed  by  different  methods ;  and  the  true  art  of 
managing  him  is  cabalism  to  many  who  were  prosperous  plant 
ers  before  the  war.  Multitudes  of  these  show  great  despon 
dency,  for  there  have  been  thousands  of  failures  among  them. 

But  when  we  examine  into  this  depression,  we  find  that  it  is 
but  the  result  of  the  transition  from  the  former  regime,  and  not 
a  deep-seated  and  fatal  decay  of  the  vitals.  These  are  some  of 
the  symptoms  of  assured  recovery,  noted  within  the  last  three  or 
four  years :  a  steady  contraction  of  credit,  and  widening  preva- 
lency  of  the  cash  system  ;  growing  conviction  that  the  whites  must 
depend  upon  their  own  labor  more,  and  less  on  that  of  the 
negroes ;  augmenting  number  of  land-owners  who  decline  to 
secure  the  merchants  advancing  supplies  to  their  tenants  and 
laborers  \  a  greater  acreage  devoted  to  food  crops ;  general 
advocacy  of  diversified  planting  ;  spreading  dissatisfaction  with 
the  laws  giving  large  exemptions  to  debtors.  Southern  econom 
ical  affairs,  in  their  sinking,  "  touched  bottom "  (to  use  the 
forcible  expression  now  in  vogue)  about  the  end  of  I874.1 
There  has  been  a  probable  increase  since  of  the  mass  of  dis 
tress,  as  the  heat  of  a  summer  day  increases,  by  accumulation, 
for  a  while  after  noon,  though  the  sun  is  imparting  less  and 
less.  Steady  amelioration  will  soon  be  general.  A  new  system 
is  slowly  developing,  and  can  be  plainly  discerned  among  the 
rubbish  of  the  old.  The  change  from  former  days  most  notice- 

1  I  see  now  —  in  1905  —  that  the  statement  in  the  text  was  a  great 
mistake ;  and  that  nadir  was  not  reached  until  some  fifteen  or  twenty 
years  later. 


Appendix  445 

able  now  is  the  multiplication,  increased  energy,  and  continu 
ally  growing  trade  of  the  smaller  towns.  This  is  due  to  the 
decay  of  planting,  which  was  a  wholesale  system,  and  the  com 
ing-in  of  farming,  which  is  a  small  trading  system  using  much 
less  concentrated  capital.  The  large  moneyed  man,  for  evident 
economical  reasons,  buys  in  commercial  centres  —  in  cities  — 
but  the  small  purchaser  must  needs  buy  in  the  nearest  market. 
Allowing  for  the  great  increase  of  farmers,  and  the  control  by 
the  negroes  of  their  earnings,  there  are  many  thousands  more  of 
small  buyers  in  the  south  than  there  were  before  the  war,  and 
towns  build  up  to  sell  to  them. 

There  is  another  fact,  not  so  noticeable  as  the  rapidly  grow 
ing  local  trade,  but  still  more  important.  A  class  of  new  planters, 
consisting  mainly  of  men  too  young  to  have  become  fixed  in  the 
methods  and  habits  of  former  days,  is  springing  up.  They 
are  new  yet ;  but  there  is,  in  many  parts  of  the  south,  at  least 
one  who  is  teaching  many  watching  idlers  by  deeds  and  silence. 
They  have  remodelled  their  domestic  economy,  accommodat 
ing  it  to  their  smaller  incomes  and  to  the  uncertainty  of  house 
hold  help.  They  have  discarded  the  outside  kitchen,  have 
substituted  the  cooking  stove  for  the  old  voracious  fireplace, 
and  have  brought  the  well  with  a  pump  in  it,  instead  of  the  old 
windlass  and  bucket,  under  the  roof  of  the  dwelling,  so  that  the 
household  duties  may  be  more  easily  despatched  by  their  wives 
and  children.  And  they  have  also  remodelled  their  planting. 
They  diversify  their  crops  and  products,  raising  more  grain,  and 
introducing  clover  and  new  forage  plants.  Some  abandon  en 
tirely  the  cultivation  of  the  old  slave  crops,  and  supply  the 
nearest  towns  with  feed  and  provisions.  These  planters  of  the 
New  south  till  less  land,  and  strive  to  improve  it ;  they  study 
the  superiority  and  economy  of  machinery ;  they  provide  them 
selves  with  better  cotton-gins,  often  using  steam  to  work  them ; 
they  have  presses  which  require  fewer  hands  than  the  old  pack 
ing-screw  ;  better  plows  are  used ;  and  harrows,  reapers,  and 
mowers,  which,  in  many  parts  of  the  south,  were  seldom  known 
before  the  war,  are  now  common.  This  little  band  keeps  pace 
with  agricultural  progress,  as  recorded  in  the  journals;  they 


446  Appendix 

seek  for  and  find  many  new  sources  of  profit ;  they  prepare  the 
people  for  laws  fostering  the  interest  of  the  planter  in  many 
particulars ;  they  mold  the  opinion  of  their  neighborhood ;  and 
their  ability,  skill,  and  wealth  slowly  increase.  They  struggle 
with  a  new  order  of  things,  having  to  think  for  themselves  at 
every  turn,  and  often  misstep  and  fall  in  the  dark,  but  they  pick 
themselves  up,  and  find  the  way  again.  The  light  of  the  new 
experience  which  they  are  kindling  grows  brighter  each  year, 
and  is  beginning  to  draw  some  of  their  neighbors  to  travel  in  it. 

It  is  not  our  object  to  give  a  false  impression  of  the  influence 
of  the  class  of  farmers  last  referred  to.  They  are  but  few,  and 
their  efforts  are  but  the  beginnings  of  the  happy  coming  change. 
Their  courage,  power,  and  numbers  are  manifestly  on  the  in 
crease  ;  and,  as  there  is  no  other  progressive  activity  in  agricul 
ture,  and  they  meet  no  opposition  save  the  passive  resistance 
of  despondency  and  inaction,  it  is  almost  certain  that  they  will 
lay  deep  and  sure  the  foundations  of  the  needed  renovation  of 
the  south.  It  is  their  belief  that,  to  make  agriculture  generally 
prosperous,  and  to  school  the  people  to  habits  of  thrift  and  sav 
ing,  are  the  first  steps,  and  that  manufactories  and  trades  and 
heterogeneous  industries  will  naturally  follow. 

They  desire  northern  settlers,  to  add  useful  features  to  agri 
cultural  economy,  and  diversify  planting.  A  few  have  come, 
and  they  are  prospering.  It  seems  rational  to  expect  a  steady 
influx  of  these  for  many  years,  bringing  capital  and  methods 
better  suited  to  the  needs  of  the  changed  times,  raising  the 
value  of  landed  property  out  of  its  impeding  prostration,  and 
strengthening  the  industrial  force.  The  climate ;  the  abun 
dance  of  cheap,  cleared  land  ;  the  long  settlement  having  dem 
onstrated  the  country  to  be  healthy  ;  the  fact  that  plowing  and 
other  important  outdoor  work  can  be  done  on  the  farms  all  the 
winter  round;  the  many  railways,  the  multiplying  towns  and 
growing  cities  ;  the  variety  of  products,  and  easy  access  to  mar 
ket  —  now  that  slavery  and  the  animosity  of  war  are  gone,  and 
the  misrule  of  the  carpetbagger  has  ended  nearly  everywhere  — 
these,  and  many  other  advantages  daily  disclosing  themselves, 
excel  most  of  the  new  States  and  the  Territories  in  offering  in- 


Appendix  447 

ducements  to  immigrants ;  and,  in  due  course  of  time,  a  vast 
number  of  settlers,  both  American  and  foreign,  will  be  added 
to  the  population.  There  are  many  indications  that  the  immi 
gration  of  stock-raisers,  wool-growers,  market-gardeners,  or- 
chardists,  bee-keepers,  in  fine,  small  farmers  of  every  kind, 
adapted  to  the  soil  and  climate,  will  soon  begin  in  earnest. 
When  it  does,  the  rebuilding  of  the  south  will  be  rapid. 

The  coming-  in  of  northern  capitalists,  to  invest  in  railways, 
mines,  manufactories,  and  other  large  moneyed  enterprises  — 
most  especially  to  develop  the  great  resources  of  water-power  — 
may  be  expected  to  begin  at  once,  and  considerably,  upon  the 
close  of  the  centennial  year.  It  seems  now  that  this  is  the  most 
powerful  agency  that  may  be  expected  to  begin  immediate 
work,  in  introducing  the  much-needed  higher  type  of  industrial 
organization. 

The  feelings  of  the  two  races  toward  each  other  were,  for  a 
few  years  after  the  war,  bitterly  hostile.  The  whites  had,  all 
their  lives,  seen  the  negroes  in  slavery,  and  from  their  infancy 
they  had  heard  their  preachers  defend  slavery,  not  in  the  ab 
stract,  as  their  phrase  was,  but  in  the  concrete.  The  "  con 
crete  "  meant  African  slavery,  which  was  justified  on  the  ground 
that  the  African  was  divinely  intended  in  his  nature  for  slavery, 
which  was  to  him  christianization  and  civilization,  so  long  as  he 
remained  a  slave ;  while,  the  moment  he  was  set  free,  he  would 
revert  to  his  primitive  barbarism.  When  these  God-given 
slaves  were  suddenly  cut  loose  from  mastership,  and  the  wealth 
of  the  capitalist,  the  portion  of  the  orphan,  and  the  mite  of  the 
widow  were  swept  away  at  once  by  emancipation,  either  directly 
or  as  a  necessary  consequence,  there  was  a  great  shock  given 
to  the  whites.  But  when,  three  years  afterwards,  a  new  con 
stituency  was  created,  in  which  the  slaves,  just  emancipated, 
outnumbered  the  whites,  in  many  counties,  the  storm  of  passion 
that  burst  forth  can  hardly  be  described.  The  whites  feared 
that  the  old  relation  was  about  to  be  inverted,  and  that  they 
would  be  made  slaves  to  the  negroes.  There  was  many  a  deed 
of  violence,  and  many  a  poor  negro  paid  his  life  for  a  few  offen 
sive  words. 


44  8  Appendix 

But  a  wonderful  change  has  taken  place.  When  the  southern 
States  were  "reconstructed,"  as  it  is  termed,  in  1868,  a  negro 
school-keeper  or  preacher,  if  known  to  be  a  republican  in 
politics  —  as  he  generally  was  —  was  hardly  safe  anywhere  be 
yond  the  limits  of  a  city.  The  negro  schools  were  often  broken 
up  by  mobs,  and  sometimes  black  congregations  were  attacked 
at  night  in  their  churches  and  dispersed  by  armed  whites  in  dis 
guise.  Now,  the  colored  children  troop  securely  to  school,  and 
the  colored  churches  and  their  congregations  are  sternly  pro 
tected  by  law  everywhere.  Seven  years  ago  a  colored  person 
could  hardly  get  justice,  in  even  the  plainest  case,  from  a  jury 
of  the  other  race.  Now,  in  all  of  the  courts,  he  has  the  influ 
ence  of  white  men  to  aid  him,  and  rarely  is  an  unjust  verdict 
rendered  against  him.  He  makes  better  friends  of  the  whites. 
There  is  no  need  for  him  to  legislate  or  hold  office  over  them ; 
he  cannot  yet  do  these  things  right  for  himself.  He  rises,  how 
ever,  and  his  importance  is  felt  more  and  more.  His  labor  is  a 
necessity.  Learning  to  use  it  aright,  he  will  surely  win  all  that 
he  deserves.  The  healthful  sentiment  prevails  everywhere,  at 
the  north  as  at  the  south,  and  with  the  late  slave  also,  that  to 
force  his  growth  is  as  unfortunate  to  him  as  is  misjudged  parental 
assistance,  which  often  keeps  adult  children  from  ever  becoming 
self-reliant.  The  colored  race  in  the  south  must  be  educated 
by  the  struggle  for  existence  into  self-maintenance.  This  train 
ing,  like  the  material  recuperation  of  the  south,  will  require  time, 
with  patience  and  hopefulness. 

The  negro  tends  resistlessly  to  a  fixed  position  in  his  own 
class.  He  does  not  wish  to  ride  in  the  same  railway-car  with 
fine  ladies  and  gentlemen,  nor  could  you  persuade  him  to  send 
his  children  to  a  mixed  school  to  be  teased  by  white  scholars. 
He  will  not  be  legislated  out  of  his  natural  circle,  where  he  feels 
comfortable,  into  one  where  he  will  be  ill  at  ease.  He'  seeks 
for  himself  a  separate  home,  school,  church,  and  occupation,  in 
all  of  which  he  can,  at  a  distance,  imitate  the  white,  to  whom  he 
is  ever  looking  up.  The  statute  books  may  be  covered  with  laws 
having  a  different  purpose,  but  they  will  be  as  powerless  to  check 
the  current  of  separation  as  prescribed  rates  of  interest  are  im- 


Appendix  449 

potent  to  keep  down  usury  when  money  is  dear.  In  a  domestic 
world,  a  company  and  circle  of  his  own,  the  negro  will  make  a 
start  for  himself. 

But  the  negro  is  grossly  misunderstood.  It  is  too  generally 
forgotten  that  he  is  many  centuries  below  the  white  in  evolution. 
Slavery  has  elevated  him  far  above  the  savagery  of  Africa,  and 
introduced  him  to  perhaps  his  only  chance  of  civilization. 

His  future  in  the  south  is  a  mystery.  Many  of  his  best 
friends  do  not  believe  that  he  can  hold  all  the  great  advantages 
that  he  has  gained  in  the  last  ten  years.  The  whites  have  been 
muzzled  by  hostile  government.  They  were  stunned,  while  the 
negro  was  stimulated,  by  emancipation.  Their  natural  effort  to 
hold  on  to  the  ante  bellum  system  has  also  helped  the  old  slave. 
But,  when  small  and  diversified  farming  is  fully  developed,  and 
accumulating  capital  brings  in  the  higher  industries,  there  may 
be  a  general  need  for  more  efficient  and  skilled  labor  than  the 
average  negro  can  supply.  While  he  is  forever  safe  politically 
against  the  white,  he  may  not  be  economically  safe. 

In  noticing  the  leading  features  of  the  New  south,  we  have 
merely  hinted  at  her  rich  natural  endowments.  We  have 
deemed  of  more  importance  the  character  of  her  people,  the 
new  views  and  principles  beginning  to  assert  themselves,  the 
great  economical  changes  following  and  to  follow  the  abolition 
of  slavery,  and  the  potent  effects  soon  to  be  wrought  by  copious 
immigration.  For  upon  these  the  future  mainly  depends. 

The  south  is  in  a  thorough  and  long  transition.  Her  fields 
are  to  be  made  fertile  and  to  smile  beautifully  with  an  infinite 
variety  of  products  ;  her  provisional  labor  is  to  be  gradually  sup 
planted  by  a  permanent  system ;  industries,  trades,  and  manu 
factories  are  to  be  founded  and  everywhere  multiplied ;  she  is 
to  have  local  organizations  which  will  foster  more  of  self-govern 
ment;  her  common  schools  are  to  be  reconstituted  and  ren 
dered  truly  serviceable  to  all ;  and  she  has  also  her  part  to  do 
in  literature,  science,  and  art,  as  well  as  in  domestic  and  national 
politics.  We  must  not  be  oversanguine  in  hope  of  her  im 
mediate  progress  ;  but  we  can  certainly  take  courage,  when  we 
find  that  every  one  who  perceptibly  influences  society  by  precept 

29 


45  o  Appendix 

or  by  example  —  whether  he  be  prominent  like  Gordon  or 
Lamar,  or  only  a  humble  planter  leading  the  fore-row  in  his 
fields  —  is  seeking  for  and  finding  the  right  path.  These  leaders 
must,  in  the  nature  of  things,  have  a  larger  following  every  year. 
In  due  time,  their  children  and  their  children's  children  will 
make  the  south  of  a  piece  with  the  more  prosperous  portions  of 
our  country. 

[I  intended  to  incorporate  in  the  foregoing  these  two  passages, 
but  by  some  inadvertence  they  were  not  printed  in  their  several 
places  : 

I  said  of  Von  Hoist : 

"  Though  he  does  not  equal  Mommsen's  vivid  delineation  of  the 
effects  of  Roman  slavery,  his  work  is  in  grateful  contrast  with  most 
of  the  anti-  and  pro-slavery  literature  of  America,  by  reason  of  his 
freedom  from  ethical  declamation,  and  his  presentation  of  the  real 
evils  of  slavery,  in  the  light  of  social,  and  especially  economical, 
laws." 

I  also  said  of  the  negro  : 

"  His  flexibility ;  his  receptivity  to  civilization,  so  different  from 
the  inveterate  repugnance  of  the  Indian ;  his  satisfaction  and  almost 
complete  freedom  from  discontent,  insuring  him  against  any  violent 
change  ;  the  probably  long  necessity  for  his  labor  ;  are  all  great 
things  in  his  favor."] 


INDEX 


[To  decide  what  is  the  right  handle  to  a  passage  not  pointed  to 
by  a  chapter  title,  and  place  it  in  an  index  where  an  average  reader 
will  expect  it,  is  often  very  hard.  An  alphabetical  list  of  proper 
names  and  rememberable  words  that  are  in  or  near  passages  which 
one  may  wish  to  look  for  is  much  more  easy  to  make  than  a  minute 
subject-index,  and  it  supplies  much  surer  clews.  What  an  Index 
Nominum  does  for  the  Latin  or  Greek  scholar  suggests  the  service- 
ableness  of  this  Index.] 


Abbott,  Ernest  Hamlin,  404. 
Abbott,  Dr.  Lyman,  347,  405. 
Abolitionists,   root-and-branch,  15,  16, 

84  ^. 

Achaean  league,  62. 
Adams,  Charles  F.,  28,  57,  58,  347. 
Adams,  John,  59,  142. 
Adams,  John  Q.,  20,  256. 
yEschines,  69. 
JEsop,  343. 
Africa,  "poor,    oppressed,  bleeding," 

180,  185. 
Alamance,  77. 
Alexander,  Tom,  277. 
Altgeld,  112. 
Amana  community,  409. 
Aristides,  293. 
Aristocracies,  natural,  90. 
Aristotle,  37,  39,  106. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  196,  376. 
Athens,  89. 
Atlanta  stockade,  381. 


B. 

Bacon,  144. 

Bagehot,  437. 

Barnett,  Samuel,  279. 

"  Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic,"  205. 


Bayard,  241,  244. 

Beatrice,  195. 

Beauregard,  293,  316. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  152. 

Beecher,  Dr.  Lyman   189. 

Benjamin,  239. 

Benton,  126. 

Bentonville,  60. 

Bible,  the,  39. 

Binney,  64. 

Bishop,  J.  P.,  141. 

Blaine,  39. 

Boley,  374,  408. 

Bonnivard,  128. 

Breckinridge,  266. 

Brockhaus,  296, 360. 

Brooks,  Preston  S.,  237. 

Brown,  John,  264,  270,  352. 

Brown,  Joseph  E.,  317. 

Brown,  Prof.  William  Garrot,  274,  289, 

369- 

Buena  Vista,  310. 
Bunyan,  145. 
Burgoyne,  317. 
Burke  41,  187,  204. 
Butler,  244. 


c. 


Caesar,  244,  343. 
California,  40,  80. 


452 


Index 


Calhoun  Correspondence,  100,  105, 
123. 

Calhoun,  Floride,  99. 

Calhoun,  John  C.,  17,  18,  19,  22,  30, 
40,  65  sf.t  85,  89,  135,  143,  150,  152, 
153, 158,  186,  208,  209,  212,  225,  226, 

239, 247, 250, 251, 253,254, 255, 299, 

3ir»35T- 

Casablanca,  319. 

Cass,  239. 

Catullus,  151,  278. 

Centralizing  and  decentralizing  forces 
in  America,  5. 

Channing,  196. 

Chase  (of  Maryland),  54. 

Chase,  Salmon  P.,  21. 

Choate,  146.  219. 

Cicero,  15,  1 8,  38,  124,  144,  237. 

Classics,  ancient,  37. 

Clay,  97,  246,  251. 

Cleopatra,  19. 

Cleveland,  Grover,  325. 

Clingman,  157. 

Clinton,  George,  96. 

Cobb,  Howell,  214,  229,  252,  253,  261, 
285. 

Cobb,  T.  R.  R.,  38,  39,  42,  48,  266. 

Coleridge,  202. 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  the  Anglo- 
African  composer,  25. 

Comings,  S.  H.,  368,  419. 

Cone,  218,  222. 

Confederate  States,  its  evolution  simi 
lar  to  that  of  the  United  States,  53 ; 
African  slave-trade  prohibited  by  its 
constitution,  55;  its  commissioners, 
74- 

Cornwallis,  317. 

Cosmic  force  and  law,  26,  211. 

Cotton,  35. 

Cowper,  136. 

Crawford,  George  W.,  246. 

Crawford,  William  H.,  218. 

Crittenden  compromise,  262. 

Crocket,  144. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  274,  281. 

Cromwell,  Richard,  297,  298. 

Gumming,  Major  Joseph  B.,  35,  321, 
347,  348. 

Curran,  437. 

Curtis,  70. 


D. 

Dahlonega  mint,  231,  245. 

Dane,  Nathan,  64. 

Dante,  36,  129,  144. 

Darwin,  119. 

Davidson,  Miss,  322. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  18,  19,  30,  262,  272, 

284,  349. 
Davis,    Mrs.   Jefferson,   22,  238,   300, 

301,  302,  305,  306,308,315,318,  323, 

32'7- 

Decameron,  170,  383. 
Decatur,  79. 

Declaration  of  independence,  41,  42. 
Delaware,  45,  56. 
Del  Mar,  109. 
Demodocus,  384. 

Demosthenes,  18,  69,  124,  144,  258. 
De  Quincey,  145. 
Dillon,  442. 

Dispensary,  South  Carolina,  in. 
Dixon,  369. 
Doolittle,  266. 

Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  21,  262,264,  266. 
Douglass,  Frederick,  25,  362,  414. 
Dred  Scott  decision,  91. 
DuBois,  Professor,  171,  193,  344,  362, 

365,  382,  384,  386,  387. 
Duer,  233. 
Dumas,  father  and  son,  25. 

E. 

"Edwards's  Sabbath  Manual,"  198. 
Elizabeth,  Queen,  38. 
Epaminondas,  273. 
Erichsen,  Hugo,  360. 
Erskine,  218,  237. 
Everett,  Edward,  70. 

F. 

Falstaff,  248. 
Farmville,  60. 
Faust,  1 1 8. 
Fessenden,  243. 
Fire-eaters,  15. 
First  Manassas,  73,  315. 
Force-bill  of  1833,  65  sq. 
Forrest,  290-293,  294. 
Fort  Darling,  283. 


Index 


453 


Fort  Donelson,  283. 

Foster,  F.  C.,  396. 

Frankland,  80. 

Franklin,  battle  of,  60. 

Freed  Slave,  the  statue,  202. 

Free-labor  and  slave-labor  systems,  their 

antagonism,  45  sq.,  49. 
Freeman,  62. 
Fuegians,  361. 

G. 

Gaius,  141. 

Galphin  claim,  245  sq. 

Gardner,  James,  286. 

Garrison,  88,  350. 

Georgia  Platform,  8-11,  183,  209,  215, 

259,  260,  261,  263,  266. 
Germany,  77. 
Gethsemane,  197. 
Giddings,  152. 
Goethe,  144. 
Gordon,  273,  450. 
Grady,  326. 

Grant,  U.  S.,  20,  30,  293. 
Greeley,  326,  441. 
Green,  235. 

Grinke,  Archibald  H.,  392. 
Grover,  227. 
Grundy,  Mrs.,  274. 
"  Gulliver's  Travels,"  202. 

H. 

Hale,  141,  244. 

Ham,  descendants  of,  38. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  59,  64,  141,  247. 

Hamilton,  Governor,  65. 

Hamlet,  319. 

Hammond,  246. 

Hampton,  393,  411. 

Hampton,  Wade,  129. 

Hannibal,  258,  294. 

Hans,  the  Berlin  horse,  25. 

ITardeman,  S.  H.,  279. 

Harlan,  240  sq. 

Harris,  Joel  Chandler,  408. 

Harvey,  141.. 

Hastings,  60. 

Hawkins,  Sir  John,  38. 

Hayne,  Robert  Y.,  30,  82,  144. 


Hayti,  360,  366  sq. 

Heine,  197. 

Henry,  Patrick,  21,  64,  97,  272. 

Herculaneum,  43. 

Hill,  Ben,  277. 

Hill,  Mrs.  Ben,  326. 

Hilliard,  254. 

Hoar,  Senator,  404. 

Holsey,  Bishop,  362,  422. 

Homer,  144. 

Horace,  343. 

Horatius,  249. 

Houmas  land,  246. 

Howard,  General,  406. 

Howell,  54. 

Hunter,  238. 

Huschke,  141. 

Huse,  Caleb,  289. 


I. 

Iowa  contested  election,  240  sq. 
Ireland,  51,  52,  437. 
Iroquois,  77,  126. 
Isabel  (steamer),  245. 
Italy,  77- 

J- 

Jackson,  President,  283. 

Jackson,  Stonewall,  91,  259. 

Jamaica,  negroes  of,  367  sq.,  379. 

Jamestown,  36,  37,  345. 

Jefferson,  41,  53,  54,  56,  59,  106,  142, 

H7,  436. 

Jesus,  40,  128,  352. 
Jevons,  107. 
Johnson,  Andrew,  307. 
Johnston,  Joseph  E.,  28*,  316. 


K. 

Kansas,  209. 

Kent,  Chancellor,  65. 

Kentucky,  186. 

Kimball  House  fire,  280. 

King's  Mountain,  61. 

Knight,   Landon,  296,  303,  305,  312, 

316,  317,  319. 
Ku-Klux,  369,  423. 


454 


Index 


«  Lalla  Rookh,"  187. 

Lamar,  450. 

Landon,  Miss,  177. 

Langdon,  John,  96. 

Lassigeray,  293. 

"  Laus  Deo,"  205. 

Lear,  128,  202. 

Lee,  R.  E.,  20,  21,  128,  259,  276,  299, 

356. 

Lee,  Stephen  D.,  328. 
Legare,  150. 
Lewis,  William  H.,  425. 
Lexington,  77. 
Lieber,  187. 
Liebknecht,  112. 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  20,  21,  23,  30,  33, 

64,  160,  169,  210,  262,  267. 
"Little  Giffen,"  29. 
Livy,  146. 
Lloyd,  H.  D.,  187. 
Lodge,  Henry  Cabot,  70,  72,  133,  134, 

136, 137,  146,  155. 
Logan,  General,  441. 
Lower  class  of  negroes,  24-26,  410  sq. 
Lucanian  ox,  200. 
Lucifer,  273. 
Lucretius,  87. 
Lumpkin,  83,  219,  222. 

M. 

Madison,  56-58,  64,  68,  96,  133. 

Mallory,  272. 

Mann,  Horace,  152. 

Mansfield,  141. 

Maoris,  413. 

March,  146. 

Marshall,  C.  J.,  141. 

Martial,  278. 

Marx,  Carl,  107,  124. 

Maryland,  54. 

Mason,  Jeremiah,  136. 

Maximilian,  298. 

McClellan.  294. 

McClung,  309. 

McDonald,  261. 

McDuffie,  222. 

McKinley,  President,  357. 

McMaster,  70,  134. 


Megareans,  265. 

Mell,  Dr.,  277. 

Memorial  Day,  322. 

Mexico,  51. 

Michaelangelo,  129. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  106,  107,  265. 

Miller,  Kelley,  392. 

Milton,  136. 

Missouri  question,  40,  84,  209. 

Mitchell,  John,  240. 

Mommsen,  260,  450. 

Monitor,  289. 

Monterey,  309. 

Morgan,  Joshua,  223. 

Morgan,  Lewis  H.,  76,  126. 

Murphy,  Edgar  Gardner,  359,  404. 

N. 

Napoleon,  297  sq.t  310. 
Nationalization,  American,  4,  5,  61-83. 
Nationalization,  southern,  4,  6-14,  51- 

61,  436-438. 

National  Negro  Business  League,  402. 
Nations,  law  of,  75. 
Natural  increase  of  slave  property,  48, 

49- 
New  England,   54,59;  environment  of 

Webster  therein,   147-152. 
New  Jersey,  56. 
New  York,  54. 
Niagara,  251. 
Noah's  curse,  38. 
North  Carolina,  So,  109. 

o. 

CEdipus,  279. 

Oregon,  80,  84,  101,  226. 


P. 

Pace,  J.  M.,  322. 
Page,  Thomas  Nelson,  165,  384. 
Parker,  Theodore,  152. 
Parsons,  Prof.  Frank,  109. 
Pennsylvania,  54. 
Pennsylvania  ladies,  two,  331. 
Peonage  decision,  373. 
Pericles,  no,  265. 
Philippine,  the,  26. 


Index 


455 


Phillips,  Wendell,  21,  88,  274,  356. 

Pickett,  19. 

Pierce,  Bishop,  277. 

Pierce,  President,  299. 

Pilgrim,  T/ie,  296. 

"  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  202. 

Pingree,  112. 

Pinkney,  Gustavus  M.,  98,  112,  119. 

Pinkney,  William,  41,  79. 

Plato,  37,  106,  144. 

Plautus,  155,  195. 

Pliny,  39. 

Poe,  143,  150. 

Polk,  President,  103. 

Pompeii,  43. 

Pompey,  212. 

Pontic  sea,  259. 

Pope,  136. 

Post,  Louis  F.,  25,  403,  406. 

Prentiss,  S.  S.,  305. 

Primary,  Georgia,  in. 

Primary,  South  Carolina,  in. 

Princeton,  331. 

Prynne,  Hester,  329. 

Pugh,  239. 


Quintilian,  37. 


R. 


Race  question,  23-26. 

Randolph,  John,  69,  97,  222. 

Ransy  Sniffles,  87. 

Rebellion,  81. 

Reed,  of  South  Carolina,  54. 

Renascence,  36,  41. 

"  Republic  of  Republics,"  64,  68,  69, 

7i,  72,  74- 
Rhode  Island,  56,  So. 
Rhodes,  James  Ford,  17. 
Ricardo,  108,  109,  286. 
Roman  law  as  to  slavery,  42. 
Roosevelt,  President,  33,  425. 
Ruskin,  202. 


S. 


Saint  Pierre,  43. 
Savage,  196. 
Sawyer,  307. 


Schurz,  Carl,  134. 

Scipio,  294. 

Scott,  General,  309. 

Scribner,  Anne,  406. 

Sellers,  Mulberry,  288. 

Seneca,  37. 

Seward,  William  H.,  21,  22,  236. 

Shakspeare,  30,  136,  138,  144,  278. 

Sharpsburg,  273. 

Sherman,  General,  346. 

Shiloh,  283. 

Shirley,  136. 

Simmons,  243. 

Simonides,  171. 

Slavery.     (See  chaps,  ii.,  iii.,  x.,  xiv.) 

Slavery,  ancient  contrasted  with  south 
ern,  155  sq.t  432. 

Slave-trade,  African,  46. 

Smith,  Adam,  107. 

Smith,  James  M.,  391. 

Smith,  W.  B.,  365. 

Socrates,  196. 

South  Carolina,  54,  90,  in. 

Southerners  and  northerners  contrasted, 
59-61. 

Southern  Mutual  Fire  Insurance  Co., 
225. 

Spaight,  54. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  144. 

Starke,  W.  Pinkney,  93,  94,  97,  100. 

State,  for  the  negroes,  413  sq. 

Staunton,  255. 

Stephens,  A.  H.,  21,  55,  69,  71,  82,  99, 
106,  219,  221,  227,  232,  249,  251,  252, 
254,  257,  264,  266,  268,  285,  286  sq., 
290,  306,  430. 

Story,  64. 

Stovall,  222,  290. 

Stowe,  Mrs.,  185,  187,  189,  197,  333. 

Stuart,  J.  E.  B.,  294. 

Sulla,  244. 

Sullivan,  106. 

Sumner,  Charles,  89,  152,  356. 

Sumner,  Colonel,  312. 

Surratt,  Mrs.,  298. 

Switzerland,  77. 

T. 

Taylor,  Dick,  273. 

Taylor,  Edward  B.,  364,  383. 


456 


Index 


Territories,  intersectional  strife  over,  3, 

46-49. 

Texas,  51,  80,  101. 
"The  Fork,"  397. 
Thomas,  Thomas  W.,  266. 
Thomas,  William  Hannibal,  383. 
Thucydides,  27. 
Thurston,  381. 
Ticknor,  Dr.,  29. 
Tillinghast,   163,   166,  194,   361,  379, 

38o>  389,392,  393,  4«- 
Timrod,  29,  322. 
Titania,  198. 
Tobacco,  35,  55. 
Togoland,  344. 
Toombs,  18, 19,  30,  32,  41,  90,  99,  130- 

135,  150,  164,  186,  191, 198,208,  209, 

284,  290,  292,  313,  380. 
Toucey,  238. 
Toussaint,  366. 
Town-meeting,  90,  436. 
Trent,  119. 
Troup,  256. 
Troy,  294. 
Turner,  Bishop,  416. 
Tuskegee,  344,  411. 
Tyrtaeus,  29. 

u. 

"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  40,  161  sq. 
Upper  class  of  negroes,  24,  25,  370. 
Upson,  Frank  L.,  43. 


V. 


Van  Buren,  230. 
Vanderslice,  27. 
Vergil,  145. 


Vicksburg,  283. 

Virginia,  35,  36,  45,  54,  59,  153. 
Von  Hoist,  70,  101,  104,  119,  122,  123, 
i24,  439,  45°- 

W. 

Waddell,  James,  262. 

Waddell,  Moses,  93,  94. 

Wade,  239,  243,  266. 

Walker,  J.  B.  A.,  368. 

Washington,  Booker,  25,  380,  387,  402, 

409,  411,  414,  415,  417,  419,  420. 
Washington,  Mrs.  Booker,  395. 
Washington,    George,    19,    53,   56,  64, 

115,  118,  282,  440. 
Waterloo,  60. 
Watson,  Tom,  224. 
Webster,  Daniel,  19,  30,  64,  65  sg.,  82, 

83,  85,  100,   105,  113,  118,  120,  121, 

247,  255,  266,  275  sq.,  304,  307. 
Wendell,  Prof.  Barrett,  28-30,  161,  162, 

163,  206. 

West  Territory,  54. 
White  labor  class,  336  sq. 
Whittier,  29,  88,  406. 
Wilfer,  Reginald,  207. 
Willcox,  Professor,  390,  403. 
Wilmot  proviso,  155,  227. 
Wilson,  General,  308. 
Winthrop,  252. 
Wirt,  141. 
Wirz,  298. 

Wright,  Richard  R.,  344,  406. 
Wright,  Silas,  242. 
Wyeth,  291. 
Wynne,  John,  156. 


THE    INDIAN 
DISPOSSESSED 

By  SETH   K.    HUMPHREY 

With  sixteen  full-page  illustrations  from  photographs 
300  pages.      I2mo.     Cloth,  $1.50  net.     Postpaid,  $1.64. 

A  PLAIN,  connected,  carefully  prepared  narrative  of  the  actual 
and  proved  dealings  of  the  United  States  government  with 
the  subdued  Indian  —  the  Reservation  Indian.  The  au 
thor's  account  of  governmental  oppression  and  ill-faith,  and  of 
successive  removals  of  the  Indians  from  their  homes  to  regions  un 
attractive  to  white  settlers,  and  of  the  confiscation  of  Indian  property, 
are  supported  by  extracts  from  official  records.  After  chapters  de 
scribing  the  experience  of  the  Umatillas  (with  whom  the  govern 
ment  held  to  its  treaty),  the  Flathead  Indians  of  the  Bitter  Root, 
the  Nez  Perces,  the  Poncas,  and  the  Mission  Indians,  comes  an  im 
portant  chapter  on  "Dividing  the  Spoils,"  with  a  graphic  and 
moving  description  of  the  scenes  at  the  opening  of  the  Cherokee 
Strip,  drawn  from  the  author's  personal  experiences.  A  chapter 
is  devoted  to  an  exposure  of  the  Rosebud  Reservation  bill,  —  the 
latest  example  of  governmental  confiscation, — while  the  final 
chapter  gives  an  original  and  convincing  explanation  of  the  remark 
able  persistence  of  vicious  influences  in  our  Indian  system,  in  the 
face  of  the  equally  persistent  desire  of  the  American  people  to 
grant  the  Indian  fair  play.  Helen  Jackson's  "A  Century  of  Dis 
honor"  has  received  a  valuable  companion  work  in  the  present 
book. 

LITTLE,  BROWN,  &  CO.,  Publishers 
254  WASHINGTON    STREET,    BOSTON 


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